Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring Monday afternoon secured the defeat of a petition for a preliminary injunction submitted by anti-mask forces in the state seeking to undo Gov. Ralph Northam’s mitigation efforts to stem the spread of the Covid-19 virus.
The decision to grant Herring’s call for a dismissal of the injunction was made by Judge John Gibney in Richmond federal court.
The anti-mitigation effort was led by State Sen. Chap Peterson, a Democrat, from Fairfax City.
In a statement from his office, Herring was quoted about what he presented to the court against a preliminary injunction:
“Here, any harm plaintiff may experience if this Court denies a temporary injunction must be balanced against the catastrophic and permanent harm that others could suffer if the Court grants one… Plaintiff asks this Court to invalidate nearly all of Virginia’s Governor’s and Virginia’s Health Commissioner’s orders that protect the people of the Commonwealth from Covid-19. The almost inevitable result of granting the requested relief would be increased transmission of a deadly disease for which there is currently no vaccine, no cure, and no established treatment. As another judge in this district recently observed, “[i]t is no exaggeration to recognize that the stakes for residents of the Commonwealth are life-or death.”
