Amended mask order for Cape County remains in effect

The emergency face mask mandate in Cape Girardeau County will continue, but not without criteria for easing it.

Members of the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center Board of Trustees voted unanimously Tuesday to continue the countywide face mask order to help control the spread of COVID-19.

However, the five-member board agreed to modify the mask order if the county’s coronavirus positivity test rate drops below 5% for a two-week period and the rolling 14-day case count of new COVID-19 cases also falls below 200 for a two-week period.

If those criteria are met, wording in the health department’s face-covering order will be revised from “required” to “strongly recommended.”

As of last week, the county’s coronavirus positivity test rate, the percentage of new coronavirus cases among COVID-19 tests in the county, stood at 10.6% compared to Missouri’s overall rate of 12.7%.

Meanwhile, the county’s two-week rolling case count has been dropping since mid-October, according to Dr. John Russell, the health department’s medical director.

“It peaked about two weeks ago with a new case rate of over 600,” he reported. “We are currently sitting at a case rate in the low 400s and it continues to trend down. This is counter to what is happening across the state and it is counter to what’s happening across the country in most places.”

In comparison to other counties in Southeast Missouri, health department director Jane Wernsman said Cape Girardeau County is doing better than most.

“If you’re looking at our percent positivity rate, Cape Girardeau County has the lowest percent positivity rate compared to surrounding counties,” she told the board.

Other options

In addition to setting positivity test percentage and case rate goals, the board also agreed to lift the mask mandate if “a COVID-19 vaccine becomes widely available to the general public or a highly-effective, relatively low-cost COVID-19 therapeutic treatment becomes widely available.”

The motion to modify the order, offered by board member John Freeze and seconded by board vice chairwoman Georganne Syler, includes a provision to reinstate the mask mandate if the county’s positivity test rate rises above 10% and the rolling case count of new COVID-19 cases exceeds 250, both over a two-week period.

Since going into effect July 13, the health department board has voted to continue the face-mask order at its July, August and September meetings. Each of those meetings were attended by several dozen county residents, many of whom said the order was a violation of their personal freedom and demanded it be rescinded.

Small attendance

Unlike the board’s previous meetings, only about a dozen people attended Tuesday’s session, and while the board encouraged public input through the health department’s website, citizen comments at the meeting were not allowed.

“We’ve heard about everything that could be heard (at previous meetings),” said board chairman Rolland Sanders.

However, one meeting attendee asked whether it was more important to look at the case positivity rate instead of the death rate. The deaths of 50 county residents, of which 37 were residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, have been attributed to coronavirus as of this week.

“The positivity rate is determined by the number of new positive confirmed cases divided by the number of tests performed,” Russell explained. “It is not, in my mind, a strong metric, but it is one that the state and federal governments use.”

Order enforcement

The board also heard from 146th District State Rep. Barry Hovis who said he appreciated the board’s efforts to deal with the pandemic. He said he has heard from people on both sides of the issue — those who agree with the face-mask order and those who oppose it.

Hovis, a former police officer, said he has been concerned about the way the mask order has — and hasn’t — been enforced. According to the order, failure to comply with the order “is enforceable and punishable under Missouri law.” However, there have been no reported instances of order enforcement.

“If you’re going to have a mandate, there should be enforcement,” he said. “There are those who think they don’t have to worry about being arrested so they’re not going to (wear masks) and those who think, ‘Why don’t you arrest those people because they need to wear masks?’ so it creates problems on both sides.”

Of the 240 comments submitted to the health department in the seven days leading up to Tuesday’s meeting, 164 (68.3%) were in favor of the mask order, 73 (30.4%) wanted it removed and 3 (1.3%) were unrelated comments.

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