Anti-masker who blamed immigrants for COVID-19 is hospitalized after maskless meeting

Anti-masker Marjain Breitenbach, who owns Doughboys Donuts KC in Raytown, made the news in August after customers complained about the sign in his store window that falsely blamed immigrants for spreading COVID-19: “Stop Importing COVID from Mexico Unmask Truth,” it said.

He and his wife Elisa Breitenbach, whose Facebook cover photo shows her with that sign, are not surprisingly maskless in photos of the Aug. 16 Independence City Council meeting at which a mask mandate was voted down. After the meeting, she posted, “We WON!”

But did they?

This week, officials in Independence had to ask everyone who attended that meeting to get tested for COVID-19. Because, they said, at least one person who was there had since been diagnosed with the highly contagious disease.

One person we know of who was at the meeting and who has since been diagnosed with COVID is Marjain Breitenbach. On Aug. 28, his wife posted, “It is COVAD. Today I took my husband to the hospital.”

“Up date on Marjain,” she wrote late Monday. “He is doing a little better. He slept good last night. He doesn’t need as much oxygen as he has. They are giving him double meds to open his lungs up more. He is watching TV and doing better.”

We’re glad he’s better, and hope his recovery continues. But how many COVID denialists have to go down this road before others see that it leads to the ICU?

Many, apparently, and until they do, we’re all stuck in Groundhog Day, without the romance or the comedy.

During the Aug. 16 council meeting, Elisa Breitenbach posted, “It’s very hard for us to be in the same room with most of these people” who don’t think the way she and her husband do.

Some of her other posts are anti-vax, anti-immigrant, anti-CDC and anti-Biden. As has become obligatory, one compared public health measures to the horrors of the Holocaust. “It didn’t start with the gas chambers …” her post said.

Independence Mayor Eileen Weir was in isolation Tuesday while awaiting her COVID test results. One of our editorial board members who was there had to be tested, too.

None of the four council members who rejected the mask mandate returned calls.

Council members John Perkins, Brice Stewart, Michael Steinmeyer and Mike Huff can avoid hard questions for the moment. But their votes against requiring masks inside city facilities were mistaken.

As was Councilwoman Karen DeLuccie’s motion for a special meeting to rescind the public health order. That’s what led to the meeting that wound up exposing so many to a potentially deadly disease.

The Independence City Council needs to reinstate its mask policy immediately.

And anti-maskers, could you please find a way to own the libs that doesn’t land you in the hospital?

This story was originally published September 1, 2021 at 5:00 AM.