As of Monday afternoon, the Pettis County Health Department has reported a case count increase of 13% in the past week.
According to the Pettis County Health Department, there have been 134 cases of COVID-19 reported with 24 individuals considered as active.
The department is concerned that when contacting positive cases, some people don’t want to share where they have been and who their close contacts may be. This makes trying to slow the spread very difficult. There has been a significant case spread through a small group activity that everyone thought was safe.
Recent studies have indicated that about 50% of positive cases have no idea where they came in contact with a positive person.  This statistic highlights the importance of mask wearing for everyone.
As far as wearing a mask and whether mask wearing is safe, the health department says that there is no evidence that mask wearing causes any health issues.
People cannot picture how they would go about their daily business or send their children to school wearing a mask.   Parents worry that if they place a mask on their child or send their children to school with a mask, this will be frightening to our children.  As we teach our children about the challenges of the world, what they can do to protect themselves and how we do things, like buckling their seat belt to protect them, we can explain that wearing a mask is one more thing we all do to keep everyone safe.  Children know there is a problem – they ended the school year abruptly in March.  Explaining that wearing a mask is something that will help get them back to school may make the situation less frightening.
There are a number of states where mask wearing is mandatory and people are able to go about their lives more easily because they are not trying to figure out where 6 feet from the next person may be.   A recent economic study indicated that we could improve our economic situation by 5% if everyone wore a mask to reduce the need to close businesses.   The department is reminding everyone that masks save lives and urge everyone to be sure to do their part.