Cape County board drops mandate, but still recommends masks

In a unanimous vote Monday, the four members of the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center Board of Trustees rescinded their order requiring face coverings in public places and replaced it with a statement saying the board continues to “strongly recommend” face mask use.

The change is effective immediately, but board members said businesses, schools and other public venues can still require face masks if they so choose.

“There are still mask mandates out there,” board member John Freeze said. “I don’t want the public to think they’re not required to wear masks anymore. If a store says you have to wear a mask to enter, the public needs to respect that.”

Nurse Rachel Thornsberry puts a bandage on Nancy Palmeri after she received a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine during a SoutheastHEALTH vaccination clinic Jan. 20 at Jackson Civic Center.Sarah Yenesel ~ sarahy@semissourian.com, file

The board’s meeting, called specifically to consider the mask order, took place online and was watched by about 50 people, several of whom submitted comments saying the only reason some schools and businesses have required face masks is because of the health board’s order.

However, organizations such as the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of the U.S. Department of Labor have issued guidelines recommending face masks as a tool to reduce coronavirus infections and deaths.

“Just because Cape Girardeau County’s mask mandate may go away, there will still be circumstances in the county where masks will continue to be mandated,” said Dr. John Russell, who serves as the county health department’s medical director.

The board issued its initial face covering order in July and reaffirmed it in October while saying it could be rescinded or amended based on coronavirus positivity test rates, case counts and the availability of COVID-19 vaccine.

At that time, the board said the order could be modified if the number of active COVID-19 cases in the county fell below 200 per day over a two-week period and if the county’s two-week average positivity test rate fell below 5%.

In addition to the positivity test percentage and case rate goals, the board also stipulated last fall the mask order could be lifted based on the availability of vaccines or treatments to manage the virus.

At 8.6%, the county’s positivity rate remains above the 5% goal, but the active case count has fallen significantly. As of last week, approximately 20% of the county’s residents have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, compared to about 16% of all Missourians and 16.3% of the entire U.S. population.

“We have met at least two of the criteria that we had in place to reconsider the mask mandate,” Russell told the board.

“As was pointed out at the last regular board meeting (Feb. 23), the case count rate for the county was under 200 and has remained so, and the last case count was 65 as of March 6,” he said. “We are currently a hair over 20% of the population vaccinated within the county and our case rate according to the Missouri Hospital Association dashboard continues to fall with the continued number of hospitalizations falling.”

However, he said the falling numbers do not necessarily mean the COVID-19 pandemic is ending.

“We are currently at case rates that hearken back to essentially the last of June and very first of July, (but) this is not to say that we are going to see the end of SARS CoV-2 infection, nor are we going to see the end of COVID. They are both going to be with us for a while.”

In new guidelines issued Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said people who are fully vaccinated may gather indoors with other vaccinated people without masks or social distancing.

Widespread acceptance of COVID-19 vaccine, Russell said, will be a major factor in managing coronavirus by helping prevent infections that are serious enough to require hospitalizations.

“That’s what we in public health want,” he said. “We may not be able to eliminate cold symptoms or a cough and fever for two or three days, but if we can keep people from becoming ill, requiring oxygen, requiring hospitalization and progressing to death, then we’ve managed to push this disease into a box that qualifies as an inconvenience versus a deadly process.”