A new health directive will eliminate almost all of the prior restrictions on businesses and outlines the limited mask requirements still left in Shelby County.
The new directive will go into effect Saturday. It comes as “metrics indicate vaccination efforts are working to limit the spread of the virus in our community.”
“More than 70 percent of adults in Shelby County have some level of immunity to the COVID-19 virus, either because they are vaccinated or because they had the virus and have recovered,” reads a statement from the Shelby County Health Department. “The average number of reported COVID-19 cases per day is 46 today. One month ago, that average was 135 per day. The test positivity rate is now 3.6 percent. That means that of all COVID-19 tests, only 3.6 percent are positive.”
Some of the main changes to come in the new health directive include:
• Points to CDC guidance on what you can safely do if fully vaccinated.
• Removes references to the authority of private businesses and institutions to require masks as it is their authority to generally manage their facilities and operations.
• Continues to require individuals and businesses to cooperate with the health department’s long-standing duty to carry out disease prevention measures, such as contact tracing, upon learning of a positive (or symptoms of a) COVID-19 case.
• Eliminates guidance for physical distancing for as they are better suited for making site-specific determinations
As for where you must still wear a mask in Shelby County, the health department mainly points to CDC guidance and they include:
• You are awaiting, boarding, disembarking, or traveling on public airplanes, ships, ferries, trains, subways, buses, taxis, and ride-shares as they are traveling into, within, or out of the United States, and U.S. territories. This includes hubs, airports, terminals, stations, and ports of entry.
• You are entering property on which a public authority (local, state, or federal) has a propriety interest, and that authority requires you to wear a mask while in the property and has posted “mask required” notice signs at frequently used entrances.
• Judges with courtrooms in Shelby County buildings retain the discretion to require the use of masks within their courtrooms, and the judge must post a “mask required” notice sign at the entrance doors to his/her courtroom.
