A top official in the Michigan Republican Party has been left fuming after being forced to attend a near-maskless meeting inside a restaurant—then ending up in a hospital with a severe case of COVID-19. Jason Watts, the treasurer of his local GOP committee, told Michigan Live that he was required to go to the March 31 party meeting because officials were mulling whether to fire him after he criticized Donald Trump in the pages of The New York Times. He recounted entering the meeting, seeing just two people out of around 70 wearing masks, and commented: “I felt like I was going into a den of virus.” After the meeting, he tested positive for the virus, and is still recovering in a hospital two weeks later. “A mask shouldn’t have a political party,” Watts said. “A vaccine shouldn’t have a political party, but we’ve conjured these things to have these connotations.” Watts said at least six people who attended the meeting have fallen sick.
