• Gov. Lee remains firm in his refusal to issue a statewide mask mandate.
As Tennessee enters a second week as the nation’s biggest COVID-19 hot spot, Gov. Bill Lee remains firm in his refusal to do something 38 states already have done: issue a statewide mask mandate.
While Lee insists those not already wearing masks will be unlikely to start because of a requirement, overwhelmed doctors are pleading with him to change course, and they maintain the state has nothing to lose in doing so.
In a rare video address to Tennesseans on Sunday night, Lee gave a fiveminute speech urging the public – as he has done for months – to wear masks as a public health measure. This time, his remarks came as Tennessee leads the nation in COVID-19 cases per capita and as hospitals around the state have cautioned they’re on the brink of exceeding capacity.
Tennessee’s largest professional association for physicians quickly weighed in, offering its response to the state’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
“We believe all Tennessee counties should be under mask requirement orders at this time,” Dr. M. Kevin Smith, president of the Tennessee Medical Association, wrote in a statement the group sent out after Lee’s address.
Every county in Tennessee currently falls under the guidelines TMA has set for recommending a mask mandate: Any county recording more than 10 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people per day should be under such an order, the organization says.
“The best county in Tennessee at present,” Smith noted, has eight times that rate of infection. Doctors in the organization “expect serious illnesses and deaths to significantly increase in coming weeks,” he said.
While the state’s most populous counties have implemented mask mandates – something Lee gave counties the authority to do, rather than enacting one statewide – just 29 of 95 counties have done so.
The governor on Monday said he “would encourage any mayor” to implement a local mask mandate.
“Let me just say, the reason statewide mask mandates, I believe, are not helpful is because they’re controversial,” the Republican governor said on a call with reporters. “We know that they are. My message last night was to those people who don’t wear a mask. Everyone who wants a mask mandate is already wearing a mask.”
Tennessee is one of a dozen states yet to implement a mandate. Among those, three – Tennessee, Arizona and Oklahoma – are among the top 10 in terms of new cases, according to a running tally kept by The New York Times. As of Monday, Tennessee, with a rate of roughly 132 cases for every 100,000 residents over the last seven days, was by far the worst state with regard to that metric. The next closest state, California, which does have a mandate, was a distant second with around 108 new cases per 100,000 residents.
Lee last week maintained that the medical community is not unified on the stance that he should mandate maskwearing statewide.
Republican doctors call for mask mandate
While influential doctors might have expressed opposition to a mask requirement behind closed doors, physicians speaking publicly on the issue – including former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, a Republican – have called on Lee to mandate the policy.
Also among those doctors speaking out for a mandate is a Republican member of the Tennessee state Senate, who says despite pressure from some in his party not to take action, he believes it’s time for Lee to require mask-wearing in the state.
“Wearing a mask is such a small thing to ask of people, and I think the doctors, the nurses, the overwhelming majority think we need to do something more,” said Sen. Richard Briggs, R-knoxville, who has two decades of experience as a heart and lung surgeon.
Briggs, who said Monday he had witnessed exhausted doctors and nurses during his weekend shift, acknowledged that enforcing a mandate is tricky. He thinks it’s worthwhile to implement one, regardless.
“A mask mandate is not shutting down business,” Briggs said. “A mask mandate isn’t forcing people to stay at home. A mask mandate is simply asking people to take measures that are really very minor, but very effective to stop the spread.”
Briggs, who has been outspoken throughout the pandemic in favor of putting in place public health requirements to curb the spread of the virus, said he understands the political position the governor is in. But people already adhere to a number of basic requirements put in place by the government to protect others’ lives, Briggs said.
“There are some libertarian type people who claim you’ve got to have the freedom to do whatever you want,” he said. “But we don’t allow people to drive drunk. We don’t allow people to drive on the wrong side of the interstate.
“This isn’t a question of saving people from themselves. We’re trying to prevent them from harming other people.”
Doctors support mandate, but recognize effects may be limited
While the loudest voices in the medical community are calling for a mask mandate, others in the industry – who aren’t speaking out publicly – believe that one couldn’t hurt, but at this point probably would accomplish very little.
California, which also has one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the country, has had a statewide mask mandate in place since mid-november, though infections have surged in recent weeks and some hospitals in the state are unable to keep up with demand.
Alan Levine, CEO of the Ballad
Health hospital system in Northeast Tennessee, said the hospital has advocated, for the sake of its doctors and nurses, for people to wear masks and for mayors to enact mask mandates.
It has spent more than $1 million on public service campaigns around wearing masks and offered to pay for local high schools to live stream football games to keep fans from gathering.
But Levine doesn’t believe a statewide mask mandate would necessarily compel mask wearing, at least in his part of the state.
“Nothing the governor could have ordered with respect to masks would have changed anything in our region with respect to the mandates, as we have had them in place,” Levine said.
Sullivan, Washington, Greene, Unicoi and Carter counties are all counties in Ballad’s operating region where mask mandates have been enacted by local mayors. And in each of those counties, the average coronavirus positivity rate remains above 20%.
“The issue seems to be enforcement of the mandates, and that is something we continue to advocate for,” Levine said.
“In some parts of the state, if the government orders it, there are many who will simply refuse because of their strong belief in personal freedom.”
The hospital chain – and Levine himself – have been forced to combat misinformation in the community, including from people who believed Ballad was lying about recently bringing in mobile morgue trailers, which are now actively in use.
The governor in his Sunday address also asked people not to attend Christmas gatherings outside their homes, a point he is now emphasizing as a critical strategy to preventing a surge like the state saw after Thanksgiving.
Lee is quarantining at the governor’s residence until Saturday after the first lady tested positive over the weekend for COVID-19, though Maria Lee is feeling better, he said, and he has not experienced symptoms or tested positive for the virus.
The governor will test for the virus again at the end of his quarantine.
Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.