Gov. Lee said masks could have prevented shutdowns
Gov. Bill Lee said in July news footage that imposing an early mask requirement may have prevented Tennessee from shutting “everything down” earlier this year, remarks that offer new insight into the governor’s thinking on the contentious topic of mandating masks.
Lee’s statements in the footage do not distinguish between a statewide mask requirement, which he opposes, or countylevel mandates, which he has allowed for. But he suggested some sort of mask mandate may have stopped the shutdown of non- essential businesses earlier this year.
“I said to someone the other day, gosh, if we had the hindsight of 2020 and we’d done a mask requirement at the beginning of March, we probably wouldn’t have had to close everything down,” Lee said in the video.
Lee made this statement while chatting with public officials, including U.S. Rep. Phil Roe, R-Johnson City, about masks and lessons learned amid the pandemic during a tour of a Johnson City testing facility on July 9. The exchange was recorded by a Tri- Cities television station WJHL and streamed to Facebook, where it drew little attention until now.
As the Tennessee coronavirus outbreak has escalated to the worst in the United States, Lee has drawn criticism for his unwillingness to enact a statewide mask mandate or restrict business, leaving Tennessee in a minority of states that have not done so.
Large groups of medical
“You, sir, have repeatedly told Tennesseans they have a personal responsibility to live up to in this crisis. Governor Lee, so do you.”
— DR. AARON MILSTONE, A MIDDLE TENNESSEE DOCTOR
professionals repeatedly pleaded for the governor to issue a statewide mandate with increasingly desperate rhetoric. Dr. Aaron Milstone, a Middle Tennessee doctor who led the campaign, said the call for a mandate is now a “demand.”
“You, sir, have repeatedly told Tennesseans they have a personal responsibility to live up to in this crisis,” Milstone said. “Governor Lee, so do you.”
Lee has repeatedly urged Tennesseans to wear masks, but not made them do so. The governor in July empowered Tennessee’s 95 county mayors to issue mask mandates of their own and said in October he personally encouraged at least one unidentified mayor to do so. Lee insists mandates will be more effective if they come from local officials. Twentynine counties, including the state’s most populous counties, currently have mandates, but most rural counties do not, according to data maintained by the Vanderbilt Department of Health Policy.
The governor’s July statement captured by WJHL occurred about one week after he gave county mayors authority to require masks.
Gillum Ferguson, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, said the context of Lee’s statement made it clear he was referring to the decision to grant county mayors the authority to require mask mandates if they chose. Ferguson said he didn’t believe it was newsworthy that the governor said the shutdown may have been avoided by earlier action on masks.
“The ‘ hindsight’ also refers to the mixed messages the CDC was giving early on in the pandemic regarding the efficacy of masks to the general public,” Ferguson said by email.
The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told the public in March that everyday Americans did not need to wear masks, then later pivoted to recommend widespread mask usage as crucial to preventing the spread of the virus.
For much of the past two weeks, Tennessee had a seven- day average of new cases per day per 100,000 residents higher than any other state, according to the CDC. As of Saturday, California took over the top spot, and Tennessee fell to No. 2.