The mayors of Kansas City and St. Louis explain why they reimplemented the mandate.


The mask mandate melee in Missouri 

Health

we want to be able to distinguish the people that are vaccinated and unvaccinated and I think to try to put everybody in the same group is not good for the system. I think it discourages the vaccine process. So I think we got to be very careful about how we move forward and start talking mandating again. I disagree with the governor while I respect him, I just don't think that that's the right approach. I mean the let's do nothing and assume everything will just get better approach isn't working. It has not worked in Missouri. It is a source of embarrassment by the way that our greatest export of late has been the delta variant. I don't see it as an either or proposition. I see it as a both and proposition. We know that masks mitigate the spread of covid amongst the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. And until Missouri has increased its vaccination rates, which we are one of the lowest states in the nation. When it comes to vaccination rates, we're going to have to employ both mitigation strategy. Very simply, we were receiving medical advice, CDC guidance and we were seeing what was happening on the ground in the state of Missouri. We have had an inspection infection spike that was growing For some time. We have had significant concerns With COVID-19 and hospitalization rates in Kansas City. Our rates have gone back to the levels that we saw in january of this year. And we had grave concerns that if we did not take intervention steps, we would be in an even deeper crisis. So that's why we acted. It wasn't a difficult decision because when we announced that he saw that I announced it dr SAM page and Dark county executives and uh obviously he's a position and I have a masters in health administration with a career that spans over decades and hospitals and health centres. So, between the two of us, coupled with the information we were getting from the pandemic Task Force, were very comfortable in making this decision. There is certainly a large anti mask, anti intervention, anti science further in our city, like many other jurisdictions in America that are against this mandate, who compare this to the flu in any number of things. But I think by and large, when I've talked to Kansas city, thank you, is what they said. And I think that the other thing that pleases me because when we talk to health professionals, they have, by and large said, you know what, this was an important step for us right now. The way that they arrived at this, these these mask mandates are arbitrary and capricious. They're not using science, they're not using fact, they're making this up as they go along. So that's the basis of those lawsuits, the governor and I, um, you know why? We may not always agree. We tend to disagree in a non threatening manner. Um, we can disagree on the issues and still work together on the things that we agree on. However, our attorney general um, decides that he wants to use the courts as a bully pulpit because he's running for us Senate and he needs a platform in order to get his name out and get on Fox News. So this is the way he's decided to do this. He's running for the United States Senate. He thinks the best line to do it is by trying to masquerade as a conservative, when he's actually fairly moderate Republican who has worked with democrats for years. But he just thinks that that can't win Republican primary forum. So he's picking on ST louis, he's picking on Kansas City by number one message to all ST louis and is to get vaccinated and educated. Talk to a health care provider that you trust. Not every jurisdiction in America is under the same crisis point. We are. A lot of other places have gotten back to normal. A lot of places are not going back to mandates. It's not about politics, it's about public health. Mhm.