City Council plans final vote on mask ordinance
In an effort to slow the local spread of COVID-19, the Memphis City Council is scheduled to cast a final vote next week on a new city ordinance that would require people to wear face masks in grocery stories, convenience stores, restaurants, clinics and many other public settings.
The ordinance calls for the first violation of the ordinance to be punished with a warning. The second violation would be punished through community service. The ordinance doesn't specify the number of hours of service, nor does it include any provision to punish violations through fines.
The ordinance exempts some people from the requirement to wear masks in public, including children under the age of two and people with breathing trouble that makes it difficult for them to wear a mask.
The final vote on the new mask ordinance is currently scheduled for Tuesday, June 16, and might come even sooner if the City Council chooses to hold a special meeting to vote on this issue.
City Council members discussed the matter during a video conference on Tuesday afternoon, but apparent technical problems caused the video feed to drop several times and much of what they said was not available.
At one point in the video stream, Dr. Manoj Jain, the infectious disease specialist advising the city, sounded notes of alarm: “Just today, (Tuesday) we have 192 new cases, the highest ever seen, and the highest number of hospitalizations, 151.”
He said research shows that many people in Memphis are not wearing face masks and evidence shows that face masks help stop transmission of the
disease.
Council member Dr. Jeff Warren, a physician, is sponsoring the ordinance along with council member Michalyn Easter-thomas and chairwoman Patrice Robinson.
“Your mask is the one that's protecting everyone around you," Warren said.
In response to people who don't want to wear masks in public, he made an analogy to drunk driving — he said you don't have the right to put something into your body, then take actions that can kill people.
"Unfortunately, you may have something dangerous in your body that you didn't want to put there now.
Do you still want to go out and have the right to kill people?" Warren said.
He said local officials are closely watching the virus transmission rate.
The rate refers to the number of times each infected person passes the virus to someone else. A rate of 1 means each infected person gives it to one other person.
A transmission rate of less than 1 means the virus is going away. A transmission rate of more than one means that each person with the virus is infecting more than one other person.
Warren said Tuesday that if the transmission rate spikes to a dangerously high level, the City Council will hold a special meeting this week to vote on the mask ordinance.
In a follow-up interview on Wednesday, he said epidemiologists had calculated the latest estimate of the local transmission rate to be at 1.19
— just below the threshold rate of 1.2 needed to call the special meeting.
He said a transmission rate of 1.2 is extremely dangerous. “You think 1.2 doesn't sound so bad," he said. "But the growth on 1.2 is huge.”
The threat is exponential growth of the respiratory virus, which can quickly overwhelm local hospitals, he said.
“Think of it like this — If you have a pond and you put a lily pad in it and every day the lily pad doubles, on day 30, the pond's full. What day is the pond half full?” Warren asked.
The answer: it's half full on day 29, just one day before the entire surface is covered.
Investigative reporter Daniel Connolly welcomes tips and comments from the public. Reach him at 529-5296, daniel.connolly@ commercialappeal.com, or on Twitter at @danielconnolly.