Of 10 states without stay-at-home orders, Missouri has most confirmed COVID-19 cases
Note: This story has been updated to reflect Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s decision late Friday to issue a stay-at-home order.
Of the 10 states that had yet to enact a statewide stay-at-home order before Friday to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Missouri had the most confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Numbers collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — and updated as of Thursday morning — showed that Missouri had 1,581 cases, nearly 300 more than South Carolina, the state with the second most. (On Friday afternoon, updated figures from Missouri showed the number had increased to 2,113.)
The pressure on these 10 states to implement a statewide order had intensified in the past few days as the nation’s top scientists and health officials said stay-at-home edicts were crucial.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during CNN’s Thursday night coronavirus town hall that these last remaining states should reconsider and join the other governors who have issued an order.
“I don’t understand why that’s not happening,” Fauci said.
By Friday evening, the number of states without an order dropped to eight. Gov. Mike Parson announced a Missouri stay-at-home order effective at 12:01 a.m. Monday. Earlier Friday, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey issued a stay-at-home order effective at 5 p.m. Saturday.
For many days, Parson had continued to say he wasn’t convinced that Missouri, which has the largest population of the 10 states, needed a statewide order. He had been hesitant to insert the state in what he believes is a local issue, including when he refused to order schools closed as other governors had done. Every district in Missouri eventually closed on their own.
The governor had argued a one-size-fits-all approach wouldn’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.
Numbers show that more than 40 of the state’s 114 counties still don’t have any coronavirus cases. But in recent days, the virus has shown up in rural areas across the state as health directors say they fear a storm of cases is coming.
Last week, Camden County, which includes Lake of the Ozarks, had one case of COVID-19. The health department there is now dealing with 21. Some counties and towns in southern Missouri are experiencing their first positive cases, and took action on their own.
The city of West Plains, in Howell County along the southern state line, enacted a stay-at-home order on Saturday before it even had its first case. Since then, the city has announced a positive COVID-19 case.
“My city council wanted to be very proactive,” Tom Stehn, West Plains’ city administrator, told The Star. “It would probably be a lot simpler if the governor would do it, but I’m not in his position either. ... Right now, we were more concerned about what we needed.”
According to the CDC, and numbers from early Thursday, here are the number of cases in the 10 states that before Friday did not have an order:
Missouri: 1,581
S. Carolina: 1,293
Alabama: 1,106
Utah: 1,012
Arkansas: 614
Iowa: 549
Nebraska: 214
N. Dakota: 147
Wyoming: 137
S. Dakota: 129
This story was originally published April 3, 2020 at 11:41 AM.
