Mayor Lyda Krewson announced that people over 9 years old in St. Louis city and county will be required to wear masks while in public indoor spaces or outdoors when social distancing is not possible, beginning Friday at 7 a.m. The announcement came Wednesday during a Facebook Live video.
Masks will be required in all stores, she said, including gyms. In places such as restaurants and dentist offices, masks will be allowed to be taken off when needed, like while eating. The order will be enforced mainly through "peer pressure." "Frankly, we don't have the mask police there," she said.
She hopes the requirement will prevent St. Louis from having to begin reversing its reopening process, which could negatively impact its economy, especially since the next phase of reopening is set to begin Monday, allowing businesses to operate at 75 percent capacity.
"It's a level of precaution that the scientists and the doctors really believe will help to continue to protect us," she said. "We don't want happening here what's happening in other parts of our country, where they have to pull back on their reopening."
This requirement comes amid a national spike in COVID-19 cases as states continue to reopen to the public. St. Louis County reported 577 new cases of the illness caused by the novel coronavirus in the past seven days. St. Louis City reported 84. On Wednesday morning, St. Louis County reported 6,616 cumulative cases of COVID-19 ; the city of St. Louis reported 2,396 confirmed cases as of Tuesday evening. The state of Missouri reported 21,551 confirmed cases on Tuesday. More than 1,000 people have died due to COVID-19 statewide.
Masks, when worn correctly, prevent the spread of the virus by containing respiratory droplets from infected people, even those who don't know they're infected, keeping those around them safe. According to the Center for Disease Control's website, masks are most effective when used widely by the public.
Masks are already required at many public places in both the city and county for people over the age of 9, including many cultural destinations such as the Saint Louis Zoo, Art Museum, and Aquarium at Union Station, all of which reopened in June. Some stores, like Costco, also require masks for shoppers. Businesses in St. Louis are allowed to turn people away for not wearing masks.
St. Louis County Executive Sam Page has previously encouraged everyone to wear masks while out in public—as recently as Tuesday, when he wrote in a Tweet, "Wear a mask, please"—but the county did not make it a requirement. Krewson has also urged people to wear masks, even making three PSA videos on her Facebook called "#WearAMaskSTL."
Sam Page mask tweet
"We are not going to be in the space of policing the general public to wear a mask," Page said during a news conference on May 6. "It will be strongly, strongly encouraged and certainly prudent."
Cities across the country have made masks a requirement, and in some places they are even mandatory statewide, including Illinois. Most recently, on Wednesday, a statewide mask requirement began in Oregon, and a county-wide mandate began in Jackson County.
"It's no longer a suggestion or, 'Please do it,' it's, 'You must do it,'" Krewson said. "You've got to wear a mask, folks."
