Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health Director Dan Partridge testifies Wednesday before the County Commission.
The mask mandate in Douglas County will continue until March 2 after county commissioners voted Wednesday to extend the health order requiring everyone 2 and older to wear a mask indoors.
The mandate will expire March 2 at 11:59 p.m. unless the board moves to end it earlier.
A different health order was on the agenda, one that would have only required a mask for individuals at indoor events with over 500 people. However, commissioners ultimately decided to extend the current mandate.
“Personally, I’m of the mind that maintaining the public health orders as they are, while our numbers are still so clearly in the red phase of the tool that we’ve been utilizing, makes sense to me,” Commissioner Shannon Reid said.
As of Wednesday, the average positivity rate in Douglas County is 12.3%. There are 3,256 active cases in the county, and 20 COVID inpatients at LMH Health.
The extension of the mask mandate comes as Douglas County experiences a decline in COVID-19 cases from a peak in early January. However, the rolling 14-day average of new cases is nearly twice the previous peak in 2020, according to a community update from Rebecca Smith, vice president of LMH Health strategic communications.
There was a public comment section before commissioners discussed the order further. About a dozen Douglas County residents expressed their thoughts on the current mask mandate, as some wanted it extended while others did not.
One Douglas County resident criticized the mandate and questioned how effective it is since it hasn’t stopped the county from being at a red level, according to the measurement tool utilized by health officials.
Another county resident spoke about her immunocompromised daughter, and argued in favor of the extension of the mask mandate.
Public health officials discussed the order prior to the vote. Douglas County Health Officer Dr. Thomas Marcellino, Director of Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health Dan Partridge and Dr. Jennifer Schrimsher of LMH Health provided updates on the status of COVID-19 in Douglas County.
“Maybe it’s because I’m looking at our staff every day, and I see their faces every day, and I can tell you that nobody, not even in that courtroom, nobody on this call, is more sick of wearing masks than our staff, our nurses,” Schrimsher said. “But the other thing they’re really sick of is having to call families and telling families and their loved ones that we’ve had way too many deaths in the past months.”
According to a Facebook post Wednesday, Eudora Schools said the district would send an email to families Thursday morning to provide more information.
Reach reporter Abby Shepherd at [email protected]