THE DESANTIS FLU:

On Thursday, a startling announcement appeared on Facebook: "This is to inform you that the Laclede County [Missouri] Health Department has been forced to cease all COVID-19 related work at the current time. This includes: case investigations, contact tracing, quarantine orders, and public announcements of current cases, deaths, etc." According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only 37 percent of adults in Laclede County, Missouri, are fully vaccinated, levels of community transmission are high, and cases have increased 13 percent in just the last week. But now the health department is simply ... stepping away.

The reason for this was straightforward enough. And profoundly disgusting.

Laclede County, and counties across Missouri, have been forced to drop all assistance to their communities, even as cases in Missouri are once again rising, because of a threat issued by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. As the Kansas City Star reports, Schmitt wrote to both county officials and school districts across the state on Tuesday, threatening them with legal action if they do not "drop mask mandates, quarantine rules or other public health orders."

Schmitt has followed up with this official request to parents, posted to his site as the Missouri attorney general, in which he invites parents to report their children's schools if they do anything--anything--to help protect students against COVID-19.

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