Montgomery, Alabama is probably the worst-hit area in the deep south, so the relatively benign call for a face mask ordinance and then a rejection of it left some doctors appalled at a city council meeting last night. Several walked out in disgust.
Montgomery hospitals are at near capacity right now, with the coronavirus pandemic hitting African-Americans especially hard. The vote was along racial lines, the black council members in support, the white council members against. The city is about 60% African-American.
Source: Montgomery Advertiser
Jackson Hospital pulmonologist William Saliski cleared his throat as he started describing the dire situation created by the coronavirus pandemic in Montgomery to its City Council before they voted on a mandatory mask ordinance. "It's been a long day, I apologize," he said.
"The units are full with critically-ill COVID patients," Saliski said. About 90% of them are Black. He said hospitals are able to manage for now, but it's not sustainable. "This mask slows that down, 95% protection from something as easy as cloth. ... If this continues the way it's going, we will be overrun."
More doctors followed him to the microphone, describing the dead being carried out within 30 minutes of each other, and doctors being disturbed when people on the street ask them if the media is lying about the pandemic as part of a political ploy.
After they spoke, and before the council voted on a proposal by Councilman C.C. Calhoun to mandate mask-wearing in public in Montgomery, Councilman Brantley Lyons questioned whether masks and six-foot distancing really helps. They do, the doctors replied. Lyons was unmoved. "At the end of the day, if an illness or a pandemic comes through we do not throw our constitutional rights out the window," Lyons said.
From the crowd, doctors called for him to visit the hospital sometime.
Instead, the council killed the ordinance after it failed to pass in a 4-4 tie, mostly along racial lines, with Councilman Tracy Larkin absent. Councilman Clay McInnis voted with three Black council members — Calhoun, Oronde Mitchell and Audrey Graham — in favor of the ordinance. Lyons, Charles Jinright, Richard Bollinger and Glen Pruitt voted against it.
A trio of doctors, who had waited hours to speak, got up and left the chamber in disgust. "Unbelievable," Saliski said.
One of the council members said he'd lost six family members to COVID-19.
William Boyd, one of several people who spoke in favor of the ordinance, said he's lost six family members to COVID-19.
"The question on the table is whether Black lives matter," Boyd said before the vote.
