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Faisal Khan, a public health physician in St. Louis County, Missouri, spoke at a council meeting on Tuesday about the importance of enforcing a mask warrant in the area, where more than half of the population is not vaccinated, during a wave of infections due to the Delta Variant.
But Khan said the unmasked crowd laughed at him, shoved him around, called him racist slurs and made fun of his accent.
Khan, who is the acting director of the St. Louis County Department of Health, said as he exited the meeting he was checked in the shoulder and pushed around by some people in the crowd.
Once outside the bedrooms, he said he was surrounded by a hostile group, some of whom called him “fat brown pussy” and “brown bastard”.
“After being physically assaulted, called racist insults and surrounded by an angry crowd, I expressed my displeasure by using my middle finger towards an individual who had physically threatened me and called me racist insults.” Khan said in a letter to the chairman of the board. , Rita Days, Wednesday.
Khan told BuzzFeed News on Thursday that if he regretted having momentarily lost his temper, he almost had it.
“I was shaking from the whole experience,” Khan said. “I have never experienced anything like this in more than 25 years in the public health service.”
His pleas to uphold the mask’s mandate were unsuccessful.
St. Louis County Council voted 5-2 to quash the county’s mandate on Tuesday, a day after its introduction, saying it did not comply with state laws on public health orders.
A video shared on Twitter showed the crowd erupted for joy after the council vote.
The incident is indicative of the anger, confusion and chaos over the new push for mask wear across the country in light of the highly infectious Delta variant which now accounts for over 80% of cases in the United States. United.
The anger and abuse directed at Khan is also similar to the experiences of many public health officials in the United States as they continue to fight not only a deadly virus but also an ongoing political and cultural war for them. masks and vaccinations.
“It is truly unfortunate that the worst public health crisis in 100 years has been politicized from the start at the national level and at state and local levels across the country,” said Khan. “This is the worst possible damage to public health infrastructure in the United States.”
Khan lamented the loss of at least 250 public health officials who quit or were forced to quit their jobs after being vilified as they battled the mental, physical and emotional toll of the pandemic.
“I am just deeply sad with the state we find ourselves in as public health officials,” Khan said. “We have only one job: to serve people and protect their health. We should not be drawn into political theater.”
Khan said he was invited to the county council meeting on Tuesday evening to explain the public health rationale behind the implementation of a mask mandate that was announced just a day earlier by the executive from St. Louis County, Sam Page and St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones.
But the county council disagreed with the executive on the mechanism by which the warrant was deployed without their permission, Khan said.
A political rally held ahead of Tuesday’s council meeting sparked a frenzy in the crowd with anti-mask speeches and slogans. He said he could hear the taunts and taunts behind him.
Khan accused one of the Republican council members, Tim Fitch, of interrogating him with “xenophobic whistles” designed to portray him as “a foreigner, a migrant and an unlicensed brown doctor who has not been trained. in the USA “.
Khan, a U.S. citizen since 2013, clarified that although he was not licensed to practice clinical medicine in the United States, he was a trained public health professional and had worked as an epidemiologist in many countries, including Australia, Vietnam, Pakistan and South Africa. , China, Zimbabwe, Botswana and the United States.
After Fitch’s round of questions, Khan said he could hear people in the crowd calling him a “charlatan”, “jerk” and “not a real doctor”.
Some made fun of his accent by posing as Apu, the racist caricature of The simpsons, he said.
“I am not saddened by the racist and vile personal abuse inflicted on me after leaving the meeting or the physical shoving, but by the fact that Tuesday’s meeting was a high profile event,” Khan said. “It was the first thing that struck me as I looked through the sea of unmasked faces.”
Khan said he did not expect an apology or a response to his letter to the board chair describing his experience and calling for an investigation into what happened.
Days’ office did not respond to a request for comment, and a spokesperson for Fitch said he was “committed to his regular daytime job until at least 2 p.m. St. Louis time.” .
Khan received no threats after appearing at the meeting, but said he requested and received an additional security detail.
“It has been a frightening and shocking experience for me and my family,” he said.
But he said the experience had not dissuaded him from continuing to serve the public. He said he was inspired by the commitment of Anthony Fauci, who, as the public face of the country’s scientific response to the pandemic, has faced threats against his life and family.
Khan asked people to think of the CDC’s recent revised mask policy in terms of a “battlefield strategy” where public health officials must constantly adjust their tactics and approaches to counter the new weapons of the world. enemy, namely virus strains.
However, Khan said “the populist pointing tactics” that unfolded at Tuesday’s meeting could potentially lead to “more disease, more infections, more misery and more deaths.”
“We ended up looking like those people whose house is on fire,” he said, “and we stand in front of her arguing about which hydrant should we connect our hose to. fire. “
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