ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - The St. Louis County acting health director is talking about his appearance before the St. Louis County Council Tuesday night.
Dr. Faisal Khan was adamant, his main concern is the transmission of Covid in the County. But he believes his appearance was not for the purpose of informing the council about why masks are so important, instead he was questioned about his credentials.
Khan told KMOX's Maria Keena, "it created and planted the impression that I was somehow an unqualified, untrustworthy foreigner. That is what I resented because I could feel the palpable anger a few steps behind me."
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Dr. Khan has 25 years of experience in the public health field, including with departments in West Virginia and Massachusetts, and in the countries of Pakistan, Vietnam, Australia. Zimbabwe, Botswana and others. His experience includes serving as the lead epidemiologist of the External Peer Review Program for the Veterans Health Administration, as a director of state HIV/AIDS & STD programs, and designer of research studies focused on clinical quality improvement, disease surveillance, disease prevention and program evaluation.
Khan holds an MBBS, a British medical degree, the equivalent of the M.D. in the United States. He is not a licensed clinician in the U.S. He does not see patients. He chose to work full time in public health as a medical epidemiologist. Khan says "that is the difference between a doctor that sees patients and a doctor that works in public health."
Khan stands by his allegations that attendees in the council chamber were hostile and verbally abusive during and after his appearance before the council.
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One person has reached out from the Council's Justice Health and Welfare Committee for a statement following Tuesday's contentious council meeting. However, Khan has not responded because he's swamped with surging Covid cases.
Khan says the verbal abuse and heckling that was directed at him is immaterial. "I documented that in my letter to the chairperson of the council only to express my sincere concern and angst at the fact that a meeting of the legislative branch in a chamber that is sacred, almost in how it should be controlled was allowed to devolve into something very different."
As of today (Friday), there are 800 Covid cases in the County and Dr. Khan says that is a sharp increase from a couple weeks ago. "Community transmission is at an all time high. So, even vaccinated people are ending up being exposed to the virus over and over again and in some cases, they're having breakthrough infections. More concerning for Khan, 55% of people in the St. Louis region are not vaccinated, so the spread of the virus continues and that is a population ripe for this virus to spread through and cause more disease and death and misery."
Khan says his appearance before the council was wasted, in terms of receiving information, processing it, and then council members making an informed decision on the mask mandate. "That is what we live for as professionals, that is what I was looking forward to do, what I was prepared to do. And so, I expressed my disappointment and angst, that is the only part of this that I would like and ask the council to investigate.
Khan tells KMOX his main concern, stopping the spread of this virus and the way to do that is get vaccinated and wear a mask, regardless of vaccination status.
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