Health Center Officials Amending Mandate

(Park HIlls, MO) St. Francois County Health Center board members will hold another meeting on the mask mandate they approved last Tuesday. The meeting is scheduled for 10 o'clock Monday morning at the Health Center in Park Hills. It comes after a group of local businesses and individuals retained lawyer Tom Burcham to look into the legality of the criminal enforcement and liability aspects of the mandate. The Executive Director of the Center, Amber Elliot, says the Monday meeting will bring forth an amended update, with no criminal penalties, for approval by the Center's board members. Elliot adds there is another avenue they can use to address any business that doesn't comply with the amended mandate.

According to Elliot St. Francois County Commissioners would not sign off on the mandate and law enforcement had declined to enforce it.

Elliot says in the Center's latest update there are a total of 1,978 cases of COVID-19 reported since March 22 in St. Francois County. 465 new cases have been reported in the last week which includes 310 from DOC outbreaks and 28 from longterm care outbreaks. 81 cases have required hospitalization during their illness, up 1 from last week. The county has 920 known active cases and 8 confirmed deaths associated with COVID-19.