Pelosi’s visit comes after hair salons throughout the city were shut down for months due to the coronavirus pandemic. In an Aug. 28 statement, San Francisco Mayor London N. Breed announced that personal services where both client and service provider are wearing masks at all times can only resume outdoors starting Sept. 1. These services included haircuts, nail services, barber services and massages.
Security footage obtained by Fox News showed the speaker entering eSalon in San Francisco. Drew Hammill, Pelosi’s spokesperson, did not deny that she was at the salon on that day and insisted “she always wears a mask and complies with local COVID requirement.” However, the security footage clearly showed that Pelosi did not have any face mask or covering on. Furthermore, she availed of salon services while indoors – violating a directive of the San Francisco Department of Public Health released Sept. 1 banning services that require customers to enter or be inside the establishment.
Aside from entering the salon premises without a mask or face covering and availing of salon services while indoors, Pelosi had a wash and blowout during her visit. The same directive by the city’s public health department also ordered hair salons to “consider temporarily eliminating services that require lengthy blow-drying.”
Owner Erica Kious found out about Pelosi’s visit after one of the stylists, who was renting a chair in the salon, informed her of the House Speaker’s appointment the day before. Kious told Fox News that while she can’t control what her stylists do, Pelosi’s actions were “a slap in the face.”
Masks for thee, but not for me
The salon owner stated that she has been fighting for six months for the salon, which took her 12 years to build, to reopen. She intended to reopen in July with necessary safety protocols that comply with local and state regulations but was disallowed. Kious further mentioned that Pelosi visiting the salon for her appointment was a double standard because no one was allowed to go inside, and she could not work due to the city’s health regulations in place – while the House Speaker can go and get her stuff done.
This recent action by the House Speaker contradicts her statements about wearing masks and face coverings. Pelosi said in June that mask-wearing was “long overdue” during an ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos. She also criticized President Donald Trump in the same interview for not wearing a mask, saying that “real men wear masks” and Trump “should be an example to the country” by doing so.
Pelosi’s outright disregard of health guidelines in place – a direct contrast to what she is saying – is not the only documented instance of “do as we say, not as we do” during this pandemic. Democrat New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who supported mask-wearing and banned some activities in his state, was pictured walking his dog without any face covering. Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean shared a picture of the mask-less Cuomo on her Twitter.
Another instance involved Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and an advocate for mask-wearing. Fauci was pictured in July watching a baseball game seated in between his wife and another friend with his mask down – clearly violating social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines.
The U.S. currently has the highest caseload worldwide, with 6,073,174 COVID-19 cases and 184,644 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Find out more news about the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic at Pandemic.news.
Sources include:
SFDPH.org [PDF]
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