TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) – A Republican leader in the Kansas Legislature is accusing Democratic Governor Laura Kelly’s top public health administrator of using a misleading presentation to bolster their argument for requiring people to wear masks in public.
House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins’ criticism Monday came as a debate raged over imposing mandates to get the coronavirus under control. Hawkins’ criticism of Dr. Lee Norman came after the CEO of the small-government, free-market think tank suggested that Norman had “doctored” a chart used in a news conference last week. Norman acknowledged that the chart might have caused confusion but said its central point that masks work remains valid.
Hawkins released the following statement on Monday:
“Over the past few days, I have been contacted by numerous constituents and media outlets regarding the misinformation put out by KDHE Secretary Norman when he presented a misleading chart relating to mask mandates.”
“Kansans across the state have seen the misdirection displayed here and wondered what else their government is doing to mislead them. I don’t have a good answer for them so I attempted to ask Governor Kelly to clarify the situation in a public meeting of the State Finance Council today.”
“Governor Kelly refused to even let me finish my question, let alone answer it. I can only take her reaction as a defense of her administration’s misinformation, and I am appalled. Due to this serious lack of transparency, I could not rely on the accuracy of the other proposals from her administration today and voted no on each of them. Kansans deserve a government they can trust, they do not have one.”
In a streamed briefing, Norman claimed counties with mask orders in place were seeing falling rates of new COVID-19 cases, while counties with no mask orders were seeing no change. Data shared on the Kansas Department of Health and Environment website shows this is true in some counties, but not not all of them. Norman also presented a graph comparing new case rates in counties with and without mask orders. This graph used two Y-axes which made the gap between case rates look bigger than it really is. The state has since removed the video of the briefing where this information was presented.
