covid-19 attributable to the delta variant is now at an all-time high across the st. louis region. madam chair, it is my duty to inform you on the record that if the council decides in its infinite wisdom to negate this public health order, there will be more misery, there will be more infection, there will be more death. are we talking about shutdowns again? are we talking about sports going away? what s your next move if they continue to go up? it is my duty to tell you, sir, that if the situation continues to worsen, all options will be on the table. all right. please. you can hear the crowd audibly reacting to dr. khan throughout the hearing. he says much of that heckling was racist, xenophobic and threatening. he wrote i heard people doing their impersonation of a
character from the simpsons television show that mocks people from south asia, like myself. i came surrounded in the crowd where members of the crowd yelled at me, calling me a fat brown c word and a brown bastard. hein stint i vely reacted by raising his middle finger to one of the hecklers. just a few hours later the county council voted 5-2 to rescind the mask mandate to the cheers of the crowd. dr. fasil khan joins me now. dr. khan, thank you for joining me. i wonder if you can just tell me what is your job as the county director of public health there in st. louis county? what do you do and how long have you done it? i ve been the director for a total of five months. i have served in this position once previously for a period of four and a half years but i have spent the last ten years with the st. louis county department of public health.
barely a day later the county council met to discuss overturning that mandate and to hear from the crowd who packed into the room. we ve lost sight of the fact that people shed blood. their lives, their children, their mothers, their daughters, for us to have the freedom from tyranny. masks don t seem to work in that. put our public servants on notice that we will not now nor ever again allow our inalienable rights and constitutionally protected liberty be taken from us. we will give no more ground. we will not comply. we will not comply. we will not comply. so that was the crowd in the room. when one of the people behind the new mask mandate, dr. khan stood up to address the council. community transmission of