Republican “ReOpen Maryland” Founder Says He Sick With COVID, Refuses To Comply With Contract Tracing

The Baltimore Sun reports:

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

Walters, a diabetic, says he’s had a cough and fever since March and is unable to focus his left eye. Most of his social media postings are devoted to hounding Gov. Larry Hogan out of office for “unconstitutional” lockdown orders.