With masks mandatory in 2 Coast counties, are more people wearing them? Here’s what we saw.
It’s a new day in Harrison and Jackson counties — one where more people wear face masks.
Going to Walmart in Ocean Springs? Only one front entrance is open and everyone is checked for a mask before they are permitted in the store. All except young children wore masks, although a few people let them slide down and become chin masks while they shopped.
“I am glad to see people wearing masks,” a shopper told a store employee. “It’s about time.”
Ocean Springs Mayor Shea Dobson took to Facebook Live on Monday morning to remind people to wear masks. Sporting a patriotic flag mask, he said masks are now mandated in Jackson County.
Gov. Tate Reeves signed an executive order last week directing people to wear masks in Jackson, Harrison and 11 other counties where new cases of the coronavirus are rising fastest.
Throughout Harrison County most people were donning masks at Walmart in Biloxi and Gulfport, at gas stations, at the stores at the Crossroads shopping center in Gulfport and Sam’s Club.
Once they got outside and were met by 95 degree temperatures and a heat index well over 100, the masks came off.
All of the large stores in Ocean Springs had signs on the doors telling people masks were required. At Rouses Market the signs were marked with yellow stars. At Winn-Dixie the signs were bright red.
Although the most stores didn’t have anyone checking customers at the door, all customers and employees, except those collecting carts in the parking lot, wore masks.
Ironically one customer at Walgreens — where stocks of masks were on sale right inside the front door — was without a mask.
Because he didn’t have a mask in his truck, a man shopping at Winn-Dixie fashioned a mask out of a bright orange hunting vest and wore it over his face to meet the requirements.
Masks are required in all businesses and gatherings in the two counties for the next week in the hopes of stopping the spread of coronavirus in South Mississippi.
Sun Herald photography intern Lukas Flippo contributed to this article.
