HUNTINGTON BEACH, California (LifeSiteNews) — The city council of a southern California city on Tuesday narrowly voted to seek a ban on COVID and mask mandates citywide as worries increase about the potential for renewed COVID controls.
Huntington Beach, a midsized city southeast of Los Angeles in historically conservative Orange County, approved the resolution in a 4-3 vote in the early hours of the morning on Wednesday following a lengthy meeting, KTLA reported.
“Individuals, whether at City Hall or in the private sector, should have a right to choose whether to wear a mask or get vaccinated or boosted,” the motion reads, according to Fox News.
Yahoo Finance reported that the motion “requests the city manager to return to the council with a resolution at the next regular meeting declaring the city to be a ‘no mask and no vaccine mandate city’ as a response to Covid or any variants.”
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The narrow passage of the motion was reportedly met with support and opposition among attendees. One of the opponents was removed from the meeting after shouting at Mayor Pro Tem Gracey Van Der Mark, who introduced the motion.
Despite the motion to seek a ban, people who have tested positive for the coronavirus would still be required under such a prohibition to wear a mask in particular situations, KTLA reported. Moreover, according to Fox, private businesses would still be allowed to compel compliance with COVID measures under the ban, though city officials would be barred from issuing top-down mandates.
Huntington Beach’s decision to seek a ban on future top-down COVID controls come as media and government figures have begun testing the waters for a renewed bout of mandates, urging masking and vaccine uptake to confront a new COVID variant labeled BA.2.86.
Late last month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that individuals who have been infected with COVID in the past or who have received current jabs might be more likely to contract the new strain.
Conservatives became increasingly concerned about the potential for a repeat of 2020 after Georgia’s Morris Brown College re-implemented COVID-19 mask, social distancing, and isolation mandates, sparking some déjà vu by stating the measures are only meant to remain in effect for 14 days.
Those concerns were exacerbated when news emerged that Rutgers University had also threatened to disenroll students from classes if they refused to get jabbed with COVID-19 shots. Hollywood studio Lionsgate also reportedly reimposed a mask mandate for employees.
Just this week, a Maryland elementary school announced plans to return to forced masking of some children in the name of COVID-19 prevention despite widespread evidence that masks do not stop the virus’s spread and that children face little to no risk.
READ: Maryland school district mandating some elementary students wear masks for 10 days
Fox News reported that parents at Rosemary Hills Elementary School were recently sent a letter notifying them that “3 or more individuals have tested positive for COVID-19 in” one particular class “in the past 10 days. We are taking the following steps to keep our school environment as safe as possible for in-person teaching and learning.”