Co-founder of ReOpen Maryland says he has COVID-19, but won’t help contact tracing efforts

Don’t start the ‘both sides are bad’ bullshit- One side could be better but is trying to do what it can to prevent deaths, the other side is acting like evil is a virtue and telling me my mother should be willing to die to keep shareholder profits up.

A co-founder of the ReOpen Maryland movement said on social media that he tested positive for the coronavirus this week but won’t work with public health officials trying to track and limit the spread of the pandemic.

Tim Walters, a two-time Republican candidate for the General Assembly from Linthicum, said in a series of Facebook videos starting Tuesday that he has come down with COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.

“I was diagnosed yesterday at the ER with COVID-19 and here I am months after not wearing a mask at rallies, churches and so on and so it’s funny how capricious this thing is,” he said.

Walters helped organize ReOpen Maryland protests in Annapolis, on the Eastern Shore and elsewhere in Maryland to challenge state and local measures put in place by Gov. Larry Hogan to slow the spread of the virus. In a new video released Friday morning, he said the protests were about infringement on freedom to worship and he was critical of The Capital for not contacting him Thursday night when it first reported on his announcement.

He declined a request for an additional interview.

Maryland’s House Minority Leader Nic @Kipke lost his grandfather to COVID-19 on Friday.

Matthew Wallace “Buzz” Platt Jr., who was influential in the world of youth sports in Anne Arundel County, was 85.https://t.co/OCe9dwxZ66

— Olivia Sanchez (@oliviarsanchez) June 16, 2020

ReOpen Maryland describes itself as pursuing “peaceful, law-abiding advocacy for public health measures that respect Marylanders’ civil rights, economic well-being and educational access.”

In the first of what Walters described as a series of planned daily videos about his illness, he described himself as a 53-year-old man with diabetes who hasn’t maintained good health habits since he left the Navy.

He said he has had a dry cough since March, that in recent days has worsened and expanded to include a headache, fever and loss of focus in one eye.

Walters urged people who have come in contact with him in the past two weeks to pay attention to the symptoms he described but he said he would not provide any information to public health officials trying to trace the spread of the disease.