Anti-Maskers Exposed Themselves to COVID at Their Own Protest

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Everyone who attended an August 16 city council meeting in Independence, Missouri, where a proposed school mask mandate was voted down has potentially been exposed to COVID, the city said in a tweet Monday.

The suburb of Kansas City recommended everyone in attendance get tested after someone who was there tested positive for COVID-19. 

The Delta variant of COVID-19 has torn through Missouri this summer, particularly in the Ozarks region. Although the state’s average daily case total is now lower than the national average and dropping, earlier this summer hospitalizations in Missouri—where 45 percent of people are fully vaccinated—rivaled their winter peak.

In July, Independence Mayor Eileen Weir issued an order requiring masks in public buildings, but the next week Weir dropped the requirement in favor of a return to a “public health advisory” recommending masks, KSHB reported. 

Although Jackson County, where Independence is located, has its own indoor mask mandate in place until October 7, the city has its own health department and is thus not subject to Jackson’s orders, according to the Washington Post. 

The meeting in question came after the city’s health advisory board voted to endorse mask requirements, and when the Independence School District implemented a mask requirement on August 10. When the Independence city council met August 16 to discuss the mandate, the chambers were “packed,” the Examine, a daily in eastern Jackson County, reported. Ultimately the council voted down the mandate 4-2.

“I believe this is too much overreach for municipal government,” councilmember John Huff, who is vaccinated, said at the meeting. “I wish all people would get a vaccine, but it is a personal choice.” 

The situation mirrors one on the other side of the state recently, after anti-mask protesters packed a St. Louis County council meeting and then one of the attendees tested positive, as the Washington Post reported earlier this month.