The Jefferson County Health Department Board of Trustees will hold a special meeting at 4 p.m. Wednesday (Nov. 25) to possibly vote on a joint order with the county government that would require residents to wear face masks in public when social distancing cannot be maintained.
“The situation in our community has changed. The level of community transmission will not subside without substantial action to slow it down,” Health Department Director Kelley Vollmar said today (Nov. 24).
Vollmar said the current draft of the mask order calls for it to go into effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday (Nov. 27).
She said the draft does not include any type of fine or penalty for not following the order.
The meeting will be held at the Health Department Office at 405 Main St. in Hillsboro.
Only 11 people are allowed inside the meeting room, including board members and Health Department staff, but the public may watch the meeting, which will be live streamed on the Department’s YouTube channel.
The special meeting was set last night (Nov. 23) during the board's monthly board meeting following a closed session discussion.
According to the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting, after the board opens the meeting, it will go into a closed session. Once the board reopens the meeting, the board is set to vote to “support a joint order requiring face masks to be worn by residents.”
A discussion of procedures for future meetings is also on the agenda.
The board passed a mandatory mask order in August but revoked the ordinance less than 24 hours later, before the order went into effect.
County COVID stats
The Health Department reported 249 new COVID-19 cases today (Nov. 24), bringing the total number of cases in the county to 10,985 since the first ones were reported in March, according to the Health Department.
For the past 25 days, the county has had at least 100 new cases a day, the Health Department reported.
Of the 10,985 COVID-19 cases in the county, 10,100 are lab confirmed and 885 are probable cases. A case is considered probable when a person has been exposed to a positive case and is exhibiting symptoms, the Health Department reported.
The county currently has 3,137 active cases, the Health Department reported.
In addition, the county has had 96 COVID-19-related deaths since the pandemic started.
As of midnight Monday, 949 people were quarantined, which means they had a confirmed exposure to the virus and were in the process of completing a 14-day quarantine period.
A total of 7,727 people had been released from isolation since the start of the pandemic, according to the Health Department.
Of the county’s total coronavirus cases, 867 have been at long-term care facilities, which includes residents and staff members who live in Jefferson County.
Of the total COVID-19 deaths in the county, 55 have been from long-term care facilities.
The county has had at least 23 COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care facilities, according to the Health Department.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) defines an outbreak as one or more residents testing positive for the virus or one or more staff members who have worked within a facility in the 14 days before testing positive.
Color status
The Health Department announced today that the county remains at the red level on the Health Department’s COVID-19 warning system for the fourth consecutive week.
Red is the highest level on the four-color system and indicates widespread and uncontrolled transmission of the virus.
Several factors are evaluated when determining the color level, including Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and White House Pandemic Task Force guidelines. However, the main indicator is the seven-day rolling average. If the county has a rolling average of 25 or more cases per day per 100,000 residents, it is moved to the red level.
From Nov. 15 to Nov. 21, the seven-day rolling average of cases in the county was 86.67 per day per 100,000 people in the county, which has a population of about 225,000.
Health Department officials stress the importance of taking steps to prevent the spread of the virus, including avoiding crowds, social distancing, wearing face masks in public, good hand washing and staying home if you are sick.
Officials say they are especially worried about the spread of the virus over the upcoming holiday season, when people tend to gather with family and friends. Those kinds of gatherings, the Health Department has warned, can lead to the spread of COVID-19, which is particularly dangerous for older people and those with pre-existing health conditions.
Missouri has had 278,661 positive cases of the coronavirus and 3,750 deaths related to the disease, the DHSS reported today.
The CDC reported the U.S. has had 12,175,921 cases, and a total of 255,958 coronavirus-related deaths, as of Sunday (Nov. 24).
Anyone who shows coronavirus symptoms or who has questions should call the Missouri State Hotline at 877-435-8411 or the Mercy Clinical Support Line at 314-251-0500. For more information about COVID-19, visit jeffcohealth.org/coronavirus-covid19.
