As Parson rejects stay-at-home order for Missouri, more counties issue their own
Despite national and statewide pressure to implement a stay-at-home order in Missouri, Gov. Mike Parson said Wednesday he still wasn’t ready to do that.
Yet Missouri finds itself increasingly outnumbered by states that have decided to go beyond merely asking residents to stay at home. On Wednesday, Florida and Mississippi announced they would join more than 30 other states that have issued stay-at-home orders.
Missouri’s number of confirmed cases continued to rise, with more than 1,580 cases recorded.
With no move from Parson, counties and cities across the state have issued their own orders. Big cities and metropolitan areas, such as Kansas City, already had done so. But in recent days, small counties — some with no coronavirus cases or just a few — have decided to enact their own.
When St. Francois County, in the southeast portion of the state, issued an order on Monday the county only had five cases. By Wednesday morning that had doubled.
“There’s been a large public outcry in our county for a stay-at-home order,” said Amber Elliott, director of the St. Francois Health Center, which issued the order in coordination with the county commission. “In our case, in absence of a statewide action, we had to take action for our own community.
“We listened to the pleas of our residents.”
The stay-at-home order goes into effect in St. Francois County at 12:01 a.m. Friday.
Parson has never fully ruled out issuing a statewide order, only saying he wasn’t convinced it was time to do it now. But he’s been hesitant to insert the state in what he believes is a local issue, including when he refused to order schools closed as governors in other states have done. Every district in Missouri eventually closed on their own.
The governor has argued a one-size-fits all approach won’t work in Missouri, highlighting the difference between urban and rural communities around the state. He regularly mentions that most Missouri counties still have few positive COVID-19 cases, and many have none at all.
“Right now there’s still 95 counties in this state that has less than five cases of coronavirus in it,” he said Tuesday. “The majority, 75 of them, has one or two. I have to take all that into consideration as I make decisions on how it affects the economy and how it will affect those areas.”
Yet, Missouri’s numbers show that the virus is firmly inside rural communities all across the state. Cases in Camden County, near Lake of the Ozarks, went from 1 last week to 17 on Wednesday. Christian County, south of Springfield, has 11.
Perry, a county in the southeastern part of the state with about 17,000 residents, continues to see cases. On Wednesday, the county had 18.
Some counties have taken the proactive step, before they are inundated, to try to keep the virus at bay.
On Monday, as Parson said he wouldn’t be issuing a statewide order, Gasconade County — which has nearly 15,000 residents in the east-central part of the state — instituted its own. The order went into effect at 5 p.m. Tuesday, as the governor reiterated he wouldn’t issue a statewide edict.
On its Facebook page, the county health department detailed the order it imposed and posted the guidelines.
At that time, Gasconade had no positive cases of COVID-19.
“Let’s do all we can to keep it that way,” the department’s post read.
On Tuesday, health officials in Gasconade County had announced their first case.
In Crawford County, with about 24,000 residents in the southeastern part of the state, the county commission issued a “shelter in place” order with just one positive case. Presiding commissioner Leo Sanders recorded a message to county residents Monday evening from his front porch.
The measure — effective at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday until April 30 — was taken, the presiding commissioner said, to protect the health and safety of Crawford County residents “with the goal of limiting the spread of COVID-19.”
“It is important to understand this is not a lockdown and does not resemble martial law,” Leo Sanders said. “... Our primary means of preventing the spread of the virus will be through community mitigation strategies and non pharmaceutical interventions.”
Parson has fended off calls from medical groups, public health officials and local governments urging him to issue a statewide order.
Those pleading with the governor to take action were joined this week by the Missouri chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which said the “negative health consequences and increased spread of the virus among our population far outweigh any short-term, positive economic benefit of allowing parts of the state to continue operating as if ‘business is normal.’”
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly issued a stay-at-home order on Saturday.
Still, Parson continues to implore Missourians to stay home — arguing that personal responsibility will be the only thing that will stop the spread of COVID-19.
“We need to get rid of the mentality that people are stuck at home,” he said Wednesday. “You’re safe at home. Be smart. Be responsible. And stay at home.”
This story was originally published April 1, 2020 at 6:22 PM.
