Health official asks for help amid escalating ‘mob’ threats



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A Michigan health official made a desperate plea for help from local authorities after he said a woman tried to kick him off the road twice after a mask warrant was announced for schools .

“There is a disease in America far more insidious than COVID,” Kent County Health Department Director Adam London wrote in an email to county commissioners last month, begging them to unite in a show of force against “the brutal hatred of the mob”. The email, obtained and published by Michigan Advance, details the threats London has faced after announcing a mask mandate for kindergarten to sixth-graders – an age group that is not yet eligible for any COVID-19 vaccine.

“A woman tried to get me off the road at over 70 miles per hour… twice on Friday night,” London wrote. “I think we’ve all seen the aggression and violence shown in meetings across the country over the past week.”

The Kent County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that London had reported a “traffic incident” the night of the alleged motorway attack, but said it was “unable to obtain a license plate number. registration or provide a detailed description “of the car and ultimately no report was filed.

The threats also extended to his children, he said.

“Last week someone shouted at me, ‘Hey mom ******, I hope someone is abusing your kids and forcing you to watch'”, he told commissioners County.

His request to the commissioners was simple: “I pray that people more powerful than me, Democrats and Republicans, stand up with one voice and say, ‘We will not tolerate or provide a quarter for this nonsense in our party. from America.

But Republican commissioners have reportedly refused to sign in their name a statement of support for county health officials drafted by Democrats.

London’s history is familiar to health officials across the country as the COVID-19 pandemic rages in its second year. Health officials tasked with protecting residents from what is now the deadliest pandemic in U.S. history are increasingly finding themselves making life and death decisions about their own safety.

Linda Veil, a health worker in Ingham County, Mich., Said threats against public health officials were becoming the norm.

In comments to WKAR, Veil said she installed a security system as she faced increasing aggression. “Some had to go further than that and get some protection for a while,” she said.

The “bullying” and “assault” detailed by London has also led other health officials to simply give up rather than try to counter the tide of vitriol and misinformation. In other cases, they have been deported.

Nick Lawyer, a health worker from Sanders County in Montana, resigned after a man confronted him at a meeting of county commissioners, calling him a “little bully” and personally accusing him of causing the death of his wife because she had not received the antiparasitic. drug Ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine. No drugs have been shown to effectively treat COVID-19, and similarly, no drugs have been approved for such treatment at the federal level. In contrast, the use of ivermectin, which is made in separate forms for animals and humans, has sparked an increase in calls to poison control centers and prompted the Food and Drug Administration to issue a statement telling Americans to stop. to use it for the coronavirus. .

The lawyer was nevertheless blamed for local health recommendations that do not allow drugs in the treatment of COVID-19.

“I must have watched her die slowly and in agony,” the man, Gerald “Frenchy” Cuvillier, told the lawyer before storming out of the commissioners meeting, according to the AP. Cuvillier’s wife, who was 82, died on September 7.

It was after the confrontation that the lawyer says he was asked to step down.

“I am disappointed to step down from the board at this time of dire need for evidence-based health measures. While not my preference, I understand the request, ”he wrote in a Twitter post that included a copy of his resignation letter.

Ultimately, he said, he was withdrawing in order to stop “the quarrels and conflicts coming from a minority of people who oppose it.”

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