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LA Health Chief and Executive Counsel Heckled Over Mask Mandate

Courtesy: La House Video Archive

LA VACCINES & MASK MANDATES? — Louisiana  Gov. John Bel Edwards' chief lawyer says the Democratic governor doesn’t currently have plans to enact broad coronavirus vaccine mandates across Louisiana despite low immunization rates and a surge in COVID-19 cases overwhelming hospitals. The comments from Edwards executive counsel Matthew Block came Monday at a House committee hearing where he and Louisiana’s chief public health officer Dr. Joe Kanter were heckled and criticized by people objecting to masks and vaccines.   When things calmed down,  Dr. Kanter offered a sobering statistic.

"The number of new cases of Covid diagnosed everyday, we remain as we have the past week and a half,  number one in the country," Kanter explained.
 

"The number of new cases of Covid diagnosed everyday, we remain as we have the past week and a half, number one in the country," Dr. Joe Kanter, Medical Director / La. Dept. of Health.

There was a time for public comment to the committee.  Brandi Pew said she represented a group of parents who were against mask mandates for school children.

Credit Courtesy: La. House Video Archive
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Courtesy: La. House Video Archive
Brandi Pew, Unmask Our Kids Louisiana

"The governor mandated to put this on my kid's face for 7 hours a day, it's child abuse, it's not right," Pew said.

Another concerned parent Jennifer Harding  had this to share before the committee.

"We can talk about freedom until we're blue in the face but our kids are going into the hospital, and they're getting sick, and some of them are dying," Harding said.  "Good health policies can slow this pandemic and can hopefully stop this pandemic."

Also Monday, the New Orleans public schools system announced that its tracking 299 cases of COVID-19 among students and staff. More than 3,000 others who had close contact with those individuals have been told to stay home under the system’s quarantine guidelines.

Chuck Smith brings more than 30 years' broadcast and media experience to Red River Radio. He began his career as a radio news reporter and transitioned to television journalism and newsmagazine production. Chuck studied mass communications at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia and motion picture / television production at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has also taught writing for television at York Technical College in Rock Hill, South Carolina and video / film production at Centenary College of Louisiana, Shreveport.