Gov. Reeves extends COVID mask mandate for 73 Mississippi counties, including Coast
All six counties of South Mississippi — as well as 67 other counties across the state — will be under a mask mandate until Feb. 3, after Gov. Tate Reeves extended his executive order Friday afternoon.
“It is important that we continue to take this virus seriously,” Reeves said in a statement announcing the extension. “We are working on getting Mississippians vaccinated, but continue to social distance, keep gatherings small and wear your mask.”
The order was set to expire Friday but thanks to Reeves’s extension the mask mandate remains in place.
The order requires people older than 6 to wear a mask in any school, business, building, or other indoor space when maintaining six feet of distance is impossible.
Also extended was Executive Order 1535, which limits indoor gatherings to no more than 10 people, and outdoor gatherings to no more than 50.
South Mississippi, like the state as a whole, has seen cases and deaths surging this winter far beyond their previous summer peaks. On Friday, the southernmost six counties reported 514 new coronavirus cases.
Here is the full list of counties included under the mandate:
Alcorn, Amite, Attala, Benton, Bolivar, Calhoun, Carroll, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Clarke, Clay, Coahoma, Copiah, Covington, De Soto, Forrest, Franklin, George, Greene, Grenada, Hancock, Harrison, Hinds, Holmes, Humphreys, Itawamba, Jackson, Jasper, Jefferson Davis, Jones, Kemper, Lafayette, Lamar, Lauderdale, Leake, Lee, Leflore, Lincoln, Lowndes, Madison, Marion, Marshall, Monroe, Montgomery, Neshoba, Newton, Noxubee, Oktibbeha, Panola, Pearl River, Perry, Pike, Pontotoc, Prentiss, Rankin, Scott, Simpson, Smith, Stone, Sunflower, Tallahatchie, Tate, Tippah, Tishomingo, Union, Walthall, Warren, Washington, Wayne, Webster, Winston, Yalobusha and Yazoo Counties.
This story was originally published January 15, 2021 at 4:52 PM.
