Only yesterday (Tues.), profane protestors — claiming that COVID-19 is a "fraud-demic, a scam-demic, a plan-demic" — shouted down healthcare workers, grocery workers and other essential workers in Orange County, California. With signs claiming "Masks Suck,” angry demonstrators prevented essential workers from being heard during a press conference called by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), the Orange County Labor Federation and other unions representing essential workers.
The LA Times reported that anti-mask protestors "tried to hit them [essential workers] in the head with their signs," citing an eyewitness report from Luis Aleman of the Labor Federation. In a separate incident, an 82-year old woman wearing a maskwhile shopping in Fountain Valley, Calif., found "F*** your mask, You scared, b****" scrawled on her car.
Essential workers are asking Orange County officials to reinstate a rule requiring that facemasks be worn in public places, in accordance with public health recommendations from the US Centers for Disease Control, Orange County had a mask-wearing order in place, but it was rescinded following the resignation of county health officer Dr. Nicole Quick, who had been the subject of a public death threat and demonstrations depicting her as a Nazi.
COVID-19 has claimed 233 lives in Orange County and more than 112,000 in the United States.