The Palm Coast City Council this evening revoked its year-long, never-enforced but influential mask mandate on the heels of the city administration lifting mask requirements in city facilities and county government doing likewise on Monday.
By the time the council took its unanimous vote, it was more of a ratification of a done deal than a significant change: most of the audience was unmasked, so were council members.
The move wasn’t without some theatrics from council member and disinformation from the floor: Mayor Milissa Holland, who had pressed hardest and successfully for a mask mandate not only in Palm Coast but in Bunnell and Flagler Beach, passed the gavel to a fellow council member so she could make the motion for revocation. Council members Nick Klufas and Ed Danko’s voices fell over each other to second it (Danko, whose decibels reign champion on the council, won). Vice Mayor asked for any council discussion. There was none. So he filled the void.
“Well, before I take it to the public, I just want to say that….” dramatic pause. He picks up a mask. He flings it behind him. He then says, to laughter from the audience: “I’ve had it with this thing. But you want to know something? You. All of you, every single one of you,” he said, pointing at the audience, and by extension, at the city’s 90,000 people, “deserves the credit, followed by our first responders, fire, sheriffs, because you guys put your butt on the line. Sorry that I said ‘butt,’ but anyway. You guys, and I mean you guys, I say it with all due respect, deserve more credit than anybody else. Those who are against it, those who are in favor of it, as of today, after we all hopefully vote for this to rescind will be able to–let me do it again, throw it out.” So he did it again.
Holland quickly jumped in though to say that the motion doesn’t mean that those who prefer to be masked shouldn’t continue to be so. “We’re just stating that it’s changing the resolution,” the mayor said.
Fellow-Council member Ed Danko, rather than throw away his “I am with Trump” mask, wrapped it around his water bottle.
The segment wouldn’t have been complete without a cameo from covid deniers, whose verve always accompanied local governments’ discussions and resolutions on the subject to the point of disrupting and delaying meetings–in Palm Coast, at the County Commission, at the Flagler Beach City Commission–while spreading virulent strains of disinformation. Tonight was no exception, though the statement to the council by Chris Martin, a frequent presence in the circumstances, was false but polite.
He started by citing a recent claim, misreading a Centers for Disease Control study, that “there was no statistical improvement from wearing a mask and restaurants. The whole thing has been nonsense.” That claim has been discredited as outright false by numerous fact-checking organizations, among them the Associated Press and PolitiFacts. Martin went on to claim that the push for masks was driven “by politics and non science,” calling it “bordering on fascism.” He ended with one last falsehood about vaccines–that “you are more likely to get in serious health problems and die from the vaccine.”
“That’s a lie,” someone yelled out from the audience, accurately: As of today, 9 million Floridians (out of 21.5 million) and 52,000 Flagler County residents (out of 115,000) have received at least one shot of the vaccine. Adverse reactions have been statistically insignificant. Some jeered Martin, others applauded, a divide that has accompanied mask mandates, resolutions and debates in Flagler as elsewhere, and not just in the United States, since the beginning of the pandemic.
Holland’s words introducing the move to rescind were more diplomatic as she summarized what had led her to push for the masking resolution, in partnership with the city’s fire chief, the health department, the county’s emergency management division and others. “It has been a incredible effort thus far to be responsive to this pandemic,” Holland said. “It has certainly been also by the residents who I want to really say thank you, because you have done an extraordinary job at coming together, heeding the warnings, staying safe, keeping your neighbors safe, and certainly complying with what’s been requested all along.”
The effort, Holland said, has now moved to encouraging a maximum amount of vaccination. “I have recently become fully vaccinated. It’s why I don’t have to wear a mask anymore,” she said, “so I’m grateful for the health department doing their incredible job with our emergency management partners to offer vaccines to as many residents that are wanting the vaccine. So we are encouraging those that have not been vaccinated to please do so. It’s a great way to show your unified support of your neighbors, the community’s safety, and continue to get us out of what has been a considerable amount of time that has not only impacted our residents’ lives, those of our business community, as well as those that we’ve lost to this tragic disease.” (In Flagler County alone, 111 lives have been lost so far to the disease. “And so, I have asked for this to be put on the agenda to ask for this resolution since I was the one who originally signed the resolution.”
As it turned out, the masking segment would turn out to be a mild hiccup compared to what would happen moments later, as if those who would disrupt the proceedings were merely warming themselves up.
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Chris M says
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778233
Perhaps you would care to post the discrediting of this scientific paper which shows no statistical benefit to wearing masks? I was not quoting the CDC so I have no idea what your fact checkers were checking. Your report is misleading and misrepresents me so I trust you will retract it or at the least publish my comment and the attached link. I am not a covid denier, though it is interesting that there has been virtually no change in overall death numbers over the last 3 years. Politicizing this outbreak has been unhelpful and created much unnecessary fear and damage in my humble opinion.
Finally I attend the occasional city meeting because I care about our community as I assume do you. I respect your at times different views, but please don’t misrepresent me in this public forum or portray me as an everpresent antagonist.
Pierre Tristam says
Chris Martin in his comment to the city council said: “There was an article published on May 5th 2021, Guy Jr. et. al., which showed that there was no statistical improvement from wearing a mask in restaurants. The whole thing has been nonsense.”
Martin must not have read the article he himself cites, because his statement is patently false. The article (actually published on April 1) is in fact as strong an endorsement of mask-wearing as any in recent peer-reviewed scientific journals. It states in its very first paragraph: “Evidence-based prevention strategies can reduce the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Consistent and correct use of masks can prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission, which predominantly occurs through inhalation and other exposure to respiratory droplets from infected persons. Mask use is particularly important because presymptomatic and asymptomatic spread is responsible for nearly 60% of COVID-19 cases. Universal and proper masking results in substantial community benefits. To better leverage the prevention benefit of masks on community transmission, many states require that people wear a mask in public. As of March 1, 2021, 36 states and the District of Columbia had a mask mandate in effect.”
The article’s focus is on restaurants and the danger of transmission that restaurants pose because “Indoor venues such as restaurants, where physical distancing (≥6 ft) is difficult to maintain and consistent use of masks is not possible, can increase the risk of transmission.” The point of the paper is to show how effective mask use is in reducing transmission, as proven by the fact that when masks are not worn in high-traffic, congested areas like restaurants, transmissions increase. Nowhere does it state that mask usage in restaurants is ineffective. To the contrary. The paper stresses the importance of mask usage by staff and patrons, if at all possible. Martin is categorically misrepresenting the JAMA paper and showing us precisely how, as Jean-Francois Revel wrote in “The Flight from Truth,” “the element of imposture is enormously aggravated when science is introduced into the heart of the political bias, by conferring the appearance of demonstrable truth on phony data and fanciful inductions.”
So no, Mr. Martin, neither “discrediting” the JAMA paper nor retracting what was reported about you is necessary. While we mistakenly referred to the CDC study that has been equally misused by fanciful inductions, you applied the same mischaracterizations to the JAMA paper, essentially doubling down on the falsehoods you spoke at the council. You added one more falsehood about “virtually no change in death numbers.” As the Times reported two weeks ago, “The U.S. death rate in 2020 was the highest above normal since the early 1900s — even surpassing the calamity of the 1918 flu pandemic.”
The article you cite concludes: “Community leaders, members, and businesses all have critical roles in reducing SARS-CoV-2 transmission and ending the pandemic.” So do you. Your care for the community is admirable. It would be more sincerely so if it were not a cloak for disinformation, which has no place on this site.
Steve says
The Anti maskers and Vaxxers are the ones Politicizing all of it. This is not an American Pandemic it is GLOBAL. Stop embarrassing yourself and the Community by spin doctoring to fit your alternate Reality.
Lily says
I work in health care. COVID deniers haven’t seen what front line people have. Patients not being able to breathe, not being able to see loved ones, literally drowning in their own fluids, not to mention what long haulers face when they “beat” COVID. But go ahead, you do you. Until Dr Fauci gives me the go ahead to stop wearing the mask I’m going to continue to do so.
Steve says
Me TOO. Watched my Uncle die of it. Never in a Hospital. strapping man for his age. No preexisting conditions. 6 weeks on a ventilator. He finally gave in to his malady. He couldnt fight anymore, his own words. To the Anti everything crowd they can purse their lips on my Irish backside.
Florida Voter says
I thought the big push was for “herd immunity.” Didn’t DeSantis say something about believing the science? Well, 9 million out of 2.1 million is a bit over 40%. Herd immunity is generally pegged at 70%-80%. Until that time, Covid is still spreading and still reaching vulnerable individuals. Until the 70%-80% mark is reached, the reasons for masks still exist. That’s the science.
https://www.jhsph.edu/covid-19/articles/achieving-herd-immunity-with-covid19.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/health/covid-herd-immunity-vaccine.html