WACO, Texas (KWTX) - With McLennan County's COVID-19 positivity rate climbing, several cities have launched emergency orders requiring face masks at businesses to try to combat the spread of the virus and uptick in numbers.
"As our cases started rising rapidly, and more importantly, the positivity rate was rising very rapidly, we felt we had to take action," Waco Mayor Kyle Deaver said Monday. "Best case scenario is that we could get back to where our positivity rate is somewhere below one percent, which it was just a few weeks ago, and now it's approaching ten percent."
In an attempt get those percentages down, starting this week, business owners in Waco, Woodway and Hewitt can be fined up to $1,000 for not making employees and customers wear masks."I hate that we're having to put this responsibility on businesses," said Deaver. "These are the same businesses that had to deal with the shutdown and some of them were, and so this is another thing that's hitting our businesses."
In Waco, businesses have until Tuesday at midnight to comply.
“I think a lot of businesses are already enforcing it, and we appreciate that, I think its important given the rapid rise in cases and positivity in our community they enforce it as soon as possible,” said Deaver. “We really don’t want to issue any citations on this, we just need our businesses to do their best to comply with this.”
In Hewitt, Code Enforcement officers were handing out 'cheat sheets' to businesses Monday to help them develop the plans for compliance which city officials said needed to be in place by midnight Thursday.
"You've heard of 'no shoes, no shirt, no service', well this is similar: 'no shoes, no mask, no service,'" said Hewitt City Manager Bo Thomas.
While admittedly inconvenient, Thomas said the temporary order was a better alternative than previous stay-at-home orders.
"While this may not be pleasant, this is a much more minor inconvenience than it was earlier," said Thomas. "I don't think that anyone really wants to go back to the way it was."
Thomas said the City of Hewitt's emergency order came soon after the neighboring cities of Waco and Woodway enacted the order in hopes of trending McLennan County's COVID-19 numbers back down.
"The reality is, we are still lower than a lot of counties in Texas in terms of our number of cases per capita, but as this positivity rate ramps up, it indicates we're going to have a lot more cases coming soon," said Deaver.
Deaver said they wanted to do it sooner rather than later after Governor Greg Abbott gave cities and counties the 'go ahead' last week.
"I know that some feel that wearing a mask is inconvenient or that it is like an infringement of freedom, but I also know that wearing a mask will help us to keep Texas open," Abbott said Monday.
Deaver said enforcement would be complaint-driven.
"It will be just like during the stay-at-home order, it will be complaint-based," said Deaver. "When we get a complaint, we will send out our Code Enforcement officers to talk with the business, give them a warning, try to help them understand why its important."
However, since the penalties reside with businesses, not individuals, city leaders are worried about the potential confrontations that could arise.
"We are very concerned about that and we will aid however we can if there are any altercations between businesses and their customers," said Deaver.
Business owners are encouraged to call law enforcement if a customer's refusal to comply causes a disturbance.
City leaders are asking for patience, saying it would take at least two weeks before they know if the mask order was effective.
"it will certainly take some time for the face mask requirement to have any effect on the numbers," said Deaver. "We would ask that everybody be patient with this, just understand that this is for public health, and we have a very serious situation in our county right now."
Although the dates for each city vary depending on when it was enacted, the order expires after seven days unless extended by the city's governing body.
The Waco City Council will consider ratifying and extending the face mask order at a meeting scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Tuesday.
“The good news is we’re in much better shape than had this happened in March,” said Deaver.
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Several local cities launch face mask orders this week - KWTX
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