Fayette County has a Face Covering Requirement for COVID-19 effective 10pm Wed., Aug. 5, 2020.
Dear Fayette County,
This past week has seen 97 new cases of COVID-19, an increase of nearly 19%. The percent of tests that come back positive is hovering around 7.5%. Our local rural neighbors are faring even worse. Tipton County has 182 cases for an increase of 20%; Haywood County has 130 new cases for a 55% increase; and Hardeman County has 140 new cases for an 22% increase. Shelby County’s percentage of new cases is like ours but with a much larger new case number of 3,077.
This weekend I received a joint request from Baptist Memorial Hospitals and Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare concerning the wearing of face coverings. Their facilities are being stretched with new cases of COVID-19. They are concerned about treating not only those patients, but others who have serious maladies who will need to be admitted, such as car wrecks, heart attacks, strokes and other accidents. They ask that face coverings be required in public to help them get through this tough time and allow the treatment of everyone who needs attention. They realize this action can only be undertaken in the rural counties through the emergency authority provided by Governor Lee’s Executive order to the County Mayors. These are the same hospitals we take almost all our ambulance patients in Fayette County and most of our intensive healthcare treatments are performed there.
For these reasons I am issuing an Emergency Order requiring the use of face coverings in Fayette County, starting 10pm on Wednesday August 5. This will allow the dissemination of the order through the local papers and social media to everyone in the County. This has not been an easy decision and one I have put a lot of thought into. The goal is to use masks more often in places where there is a strong possibility of the virus being transmitted and to educate people on that goal. For that reason, I am asking any enforcement actions to take that into consideration when encountering someone who does not have an appropriate covering on.
My goal, and I know everyone else’s, is to get through this pandemic. When I finally get guidance from the Tennessee Department of Health or another authoritative source on when this order should be removed, I will announce that. Until then please do your part to help keep this disease in check.
Please be safe!
~Mayor Rhea “Skip” Taylor