When Lindi Williford’s daughter was quarantined a year ago for suspected exposure to COVID-19, it was her 16th birthday and she was free of any coronavirus symptoms.
“It was devastating for her,” Williford told the St. Louis Record. “She couldn’t go take her driver's test. We couldn't go out and celebrate her birthday. Why are we quarantining healthy kids? I've never seen healthy children being punished like this.”
Williford’s daughter was subsequently quarantined three more times.
“I was mad and my daughter was mad,” Williford said. “I got really loud and became that mouthy mom that started pushing back. I went to Jefferson City and advocated in front of the House and the Senate. Then, I gathered my parent army because my daughter isn’t the only one. We really started fighting back.”
The St. Charles County Parents Association (SCCPA), founded 30 days ago by Williford, sued the St. Charles County Department of Health in the Circuit Court of St. Charles alleging deprivation of rights.
“The way the health department words their quarantine guidelines, it seems discriminatory against our vaccinated and unvaccinated children and our masked and our unmasked children,” Williford said. “They're not addressing the actual issue of the quarantines. They seem to be creating workarounds for these kids. It feels like medical extortion, which sounds a little extreme, but it seems like quarantine measures are nothing more than a back-ended vaccine and mask mandate, in my opinion.”
The plaintiffs are seeking a declaratory order that includes the following counts.
Declaration that defendant’s quarantine orders are invalid for failure to comply with the Missouri Sunshine Law.
“They were making these quarantine guidelines and rules behind the public's back with the school districts and the superintendents in quiet sessions,” Williford said. “There was nothing public about what they were doing.”
Declaration that quarantine orders are subject to 67.265.1 RSMo
“That relates to a law that was put into effect in June where it is required that the county council vote on such measures and that never happened," she said
Declaration that defendants’ issuance of quarantine orders without legal authority violates the Missouri Constitution by depriving parents of property interests without due process of law.
“The health department is making the school do their work and the contact tracing,” Williford said. “They're not even issuing these quarantine orders, in my opinion, in a legal way. They're emailing them to parents. Sometimes, they’ve ordered a quarantine 10 or 11 days after the exposure date and the kid is still in school the whole time. So, it just seems really silly and just completely obnoxious the way they're handling this and trying to make the school do their dirty work for them.”
Declaration that defendant’s issuance of quarantine orders violates the Missouri constitution by burdening schools’ right peaceably to assemble for the common good.
“An education is a public assembly setting and they're depriving us of that right too,” Williford added.