Faisal Khan (top right) speaks in support of the mandate for the mask at Tuesday's St. Louis County Council meeting.He said that he was once outside the chambers when he was confronted by a hostile group. Some called him a brown bastard and a fat brown cunt.Khan, the St. Louis County Department of Health acting director, stated that he was being shoulder-checked by several people as he left the meeting.Khan claimed that the unmasked crowd smirked at Khan, jostled him about, called Khan racial slurs and mocked him accentually.Faisal Khan is a Missouri public health doctor who spoke to a council meeting Tuesday about the importance and necessity of enforcing the mask mandate in the region, where more that half the population is not vaccinated. This was in response to the recent surge in infections caused by the Delta variant.A Twitter video showed crowd members cheering after the vote of the council.On Tuesday, the St. Louis County Council voted 52 in favor of removing the county mandate. This was just a day after it had been introduced. It stated that it wasn't compliant with state laws regarding public health orders.Khan stated that he was shaken by the entire experience. "I have never had anything like it in my 25+ years of public health service.BuzzFeed News reported that Khan admitted to regretting losing his composure for a moment, but that he was just about having it.Khan wrote to Rita Days on Wednesday, "After being physically assaulted and called racist slurs and surrounded by an anger mob, I expressed displeasure by using the middle finger towards an individual who had physical threatened me and called my racist slurs,"This incident is indicative the anger, confusion and chaos caused by the renewed push to wear masks across the country, in light of the highly contagious Delta variant, which now accounts for more than 80% US cases.Khan's anger and abuse are similar to the experiences of many US public health officials as they fight not only a deadly disease but also a political and cultural war over vaccinations.Khan stated, "It is really unfortunate that the worst public-health crisis in 100 years was politicized right from the beginning at the national and state levels across the country." Khan stated, "That is the most severe damage to the US's public health infrastructure."Khan lamented the loss of at most 250 public health officers who were vilified and had to deal with the emotional, mental, and physical effects of the pandemic.Khan stated, "I am just deeply sad at the state that we find ourselves as public health officers." We have one job: to protect and serve the health of people. We shouldn't be forced into politics.Khan stated that he was invited by the county council to discuss the public health reasons behind the implementation of a mandate for masks that had been announced the day before by Sam Page, St. Louis County executive, and Tishaura Jones, St. Louis Mayor.Khan stated that the county council did not agree with Khan on the method by which the mandate was rolled out without their consent.Khan claimed that the anger was palpable at Khan's step up to the lectern during a political rally before Tuesday's council meeting. Khan said that he could hear the jeers, taunts and jeers behind him.Khan claimed that Tim Fitch, one of the Republican councilmen, asked him questions that were xenophobic and intended to portray him as a "foreigner, a migrant and a non-licensed, brown doctor who was not trained in America."Khan, who is a US citizen since 2013, explained that he wasn't licensed to practice medical treatment in the US but was a public health professional and had worked in epidemiology in many countries including Australia, Vietnam and South Africa.Khan claimed that he could hear Fitch asking questions about Khan and calling him a "quack," a jerk, and a "not real doctor" after Khan answered.People mocked his accent and tried to impersonate Apu, the racist cartoon from The Simpsons. He said it.Khan stated that he was saddened by the racist and inhumane personal abuse he received after I left the meeting, or the physical jostling. But that Tuesday's meeting had been a superpreader event. That was the first thing I noticed as I looked at the sea of unmasked faces.Khan stated that he doesn't expect an apology from the council chairwoman or a reply to his letter outlining his experiences and asking for an investigation.Days's office didn't respond to a request of comment. A spokesperson for Fitch stated that he was "tied up in his regular day job until at most 2pm St. Louis time."Khan did not receive any threats following his appearance at the meeting. However, he claimed that he had requested and received additional security personnel.He said, "This was a frightening and jarring event for me and my family."He said that the experience has not stopped him from serving the public. He stated that he was inspired and motivated by Anthony Fauci's dedication to the nation's scientific response to the pandemic. Fauci has been threatened with his life as well as his family.Khan challenged people to consider the CDC's revised mask policy as a battlefield strategy, where public health officials must constantly adapt their strategies and approaches to combat the enemy's new weapon, i.e. the virus strains.Khan stated that the "populist point scoring tactics" used during Tuesday's meeting could lead to more disease, more infected, more misery and more death.He said that they had ended up looking "like those people whose home is on fire" and that they were standing in front of the fire, arguing about which fire hydrant to connect their fire hoses to.
