Cape Girardeau County's Emergency Face Coverings Order starts Monday

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. — The Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center’s Emergency Face Covering Order takes effect Monday, July 13.

To reduce the spread of COVID-19, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that people wear cloth face coverings in public settings when around people outside of their household, especially when other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain, the health center said in a news release issued on Friday.

“Wearing a cloth face covering will help protect people around you, including those at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19 and workers who frequently come into close contact with other people (e.g., in stores and restaurants),” the health center said.

The cloth face coverings recommended in the Order are not surgical masks or respirators. Exemptions have been allowed for those individuals that have medical reasons that may prevent them from wearing a face covering.

Considerations for wearing face coverings include:

• Cloth face coverings may help prevent people who have COVID-19 from spreading the virus to others.

• Cloth face coverings are most likely to reduce the spread of COVID-19 when they are widely used by people in public settings.

• Cloth face coverings should NOT be worn by children under the age of 3 or anyone who has trouble breathing, is unconscious, incapacitated, or otherwise unable to remove the mask without assistance.

Cloth face coverings are recommended as a simple barrier to help prevent respiratory droplets from traveling into the air and onto other people when the person wearing the cloth face covering coughs, sneezes, talks, or raises their voice. This recommendation is based on what we know about the role respiratory droplets play in the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19, paired with emerging evidence from clinical and laboratory studies that shows cloth face coverings reduce the spray of droplets when worn over the nose and mouth.

For a list of recent studies that demonstrate the efficacy of face coverings please visit: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover-....