Jefferson County face mask order takes effect Monday evening

Everyone age 9 and above in Jefferson County will be required to wear a face covering in most indoor public spaces starting Monday, June 29, at 5 p.m., the Jefferson County health officer said Friday.

The new requirement applies to indoor spaces of businesses or venues open to the general public, including stores, bars and restaurants (except when people are eating or drinking), entertainment venues, public meeting spaces, government buildings and civic centers.

The face covering requirement also applies to outdoor spaces where 10 or more people are gathered and are unable to maintain at least 6 feet between people from different households. It also applies to transportation services available to the general public, including mass transit, paratransit, ride sharing services and taxis, Jefferson County Health Officer Dr. Mark Wilson said.

It does not apply to places of worship or schools. Places of worship can use their own discretion, but Wilson said face coverings are strongly recommended for congregations during worship services, especially during congregational singing or in situations where people from different households can’t stay 6 feet apart.

Wilson said he allowed the exception for places of worship because he is trying to strike a balance with religious freedom.

Also, schools, day care centers and child care establishments can establish their own policies and procedures with guidance from the Alabama Department of Education and public health authorities.

The new county health order initially states that the mask requirement applies to everyone except children ages 2 and younger. However, further in the order, it gives parents and caregivers discretion in determining whether children ages 8 and younger can consistently and effectively wear a mask.

The county order will not apply in the city limits of Birmingham as long as Birmingham’s mask ordinance remains in effect, but if Birmingham’s mask ordinance expires, the county order will then take effect, Wilson said.

The county order will stay in effect until Wilson determines that public health conditions in the county warrant it being discontinued or changed, he said.

It’s necessary because the spread of the COVID-19 disease is getting worse in Jefferson County, Wilson said. “Things are moving in the wrong direction, and I’m very concerned.”

Jefferson County has documented 1,124 new cases of COVID-19 in the past two weeks, bringing the total number of documented cases since the outbreak began to 3,603, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health. The total number of deaths in Jefferson County attributed to the disease had risen to 133 as of Saturday, June 27.

Dr. Michael Saag, a professor of medicine in the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Division of Infectious Diseases who contracted COVID-19 himself but recovered, said it is “one of the most infectious agents we’ve ever encountered” and is much more transmissible and deadly than he originally thought.

He said it has been frustrating and demoralizing to him to see people’s lack of respect for the epidemic and lack of cooperation in trying to combat it.

So many people wanted restrictions on businesses and pubic gatherings to be lifted, and many of those restrictions were, but people have done a poor job at using personal responsibility to combat the spread since then, Saag said.

Many people wanted to go back to how they were living in January, but “that’s not going to cut it,” Saag said. “We’ve got to do more.”

If nothing is done, the numbers will continue to go up, he said.

“The more we get together, especially in indoor places and we’re not protecting our neighbors by wearing a mask, we just perpetuate the spread,” he said.

If nothing is done, Alabama is likely to see another 2,000 or so deaths due to COVID-19 between now and the end of September, Saag said. But if people will simply wear masks and maintain proper social distancing, that number could drop to about 1,300 deaths, he said.

“You and I have the ability to protect 700 people in the next couple of months if we do what I would call a patriotic duty and protect our community and protect ourselves and our families,” Saag said.

Combatting the spread of COVID-19 also will help keep health care systems from getting stressed, he said.

“Right now, we’re starting to see, in parallel to the increasing number of cases, health care systems being stretched,” Saag said.

Most hospitals have made preparations for greater numbers, “but at some point, for any hospital, that stretching of capacity ultimately gets to a point where a hospital or health system is going to have a lot of problems managing an onslaught of patients,” he said.

The forecasted increase of COVID-19 patients would take up hospital beds and equipment normally needed for people with heart attacks, burns and motor vehicle accident injuries, “and there may not be room at the inn,” Saag said.

“This is a call out to our community to come together, to be patriotic, to do the right thing not only to protect ourselves, but to protect our families and our community,” he said.

Wilson said the idea of wearing masks unfortunately has become a political issue when it shouldn’t be.

“This is public health. This is science,” he said. “This is doing what’s right for our community based on the best information we have about to protect people from the spread of disease.”

Wilson said he has heard a lot of concerns from people about losing personal liberty by being forced to wear a mask, but he also has heard from a lot of people who don’t feel safe going into public places and feel their personal liberties have been limited because other people are not taking actions to keep the community safe.

“In medicine, I think a lot about risk and benefit,” Wilson said. “We as doctors, when we prescribe medication, does the medication do more good or more harm? In this case, the medicine is a minor inconvenience for people to wear a face covering to protect each other and protect our community. The benefit is that we can potentially, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, we could potentially reduce the transmission of COVID-19 by 50%.”

See the complete order requiring face coverings in Jefferson County here.