Harris to mayors: Mandate masks
Letter urges move ‘in absence of state action’
A day after Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee refused to mandate masks while Tennessee deals with one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the nation, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris wrote a letter to the mayors of every county in West Tennessee.
“It would have likely helped us a great deal to see more interventions at the state level and, like many of you, I have repeatedly encouraged state officials to implement a state-wide mask mandate,” Harris wrote. “However, in the absence of state action, I believe we have got to step up together as a region. ... I am writing now to ask that each of you who do not currently have a mask mandate to please implement one.”
The letter included examples of mask mandates from three West Tennessee counties, Lauderdale, Obion and Dyer.
Sunday night, Lee announced a new 10-person public gathering restriction in a live video address. He also urged Tennesseans to gather with people only within their household for Christmas and asked employers to allow employees to work
from home for the next 30 days.
However, he stopped short of implementing a mask mandate, something he has long left in the hands of local government leaders.
Mayors of West Tennessee counties have worked closely together before. In November, about 10 county mayors, several municipal mayors and representatives of major regional hospital systems participated in a video call where they criticized Lee's reluctance to enact a statewide mask mandate.
On the November call, they discussed a collaborative, regional approach to blunting the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Mayor Chris Young of Dyer County said he has been “begging” other West Tennessee mayors to implement mask mandates.
“Dyer County is a retail draw from most surrounding counties. Lake County shops here heavily, Lauderdale, Crockett, Gibson, they all come here to shop and work,” Young said. “There's not a doubt in my mind that if our surrounding counties would work together and implement a mask mandate throughout West Tennessee or most of Tennessee, we'd all be better today.”
Nine of West Tennessee's 21 counties currently have mask mandates, according to Lee's office.
Young said he thinks mayors that have not implemented mandates have made up their minds. At the same time, he's hopeful that he's wrong.
“I think they've got the idea that we're infringing on someone's right to mandate a mask and they don't feel like it's constitutional,” Young said. “I've heard that many times.”
In October, the White House told Tennessee that a “statewide mask mandate must be implemented.”
In his letter to West Tennessee mayors, Harris referenced research from the Vanderbilt Department of Health Policy that “found that counties that have adopted a mask mandate have recorded significantly less deaths per capita than counties that have not implemented such a mandate.”
Since the White House urged Tennessee to implement a statewide mask mandate, COVID-19 cases have surged in the state. In the last few days, Tennessee has had the most serious COVID-19 outbreak in the United States.
As of Monday, it was surpassed only by Oklahoma in terms of average daily cases per population, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.