After Stoddard County, state issue stay-at-home orders, other local counties follow suit

The stay-at-home orders recently enacted in Stoddard, Carter and Wayne counties are very similar to what was mandated in the Stay Home Missouri order issued by Gov. Mike Parson.

All call for the residents to stay at home and avoid public places, except for obtaining food, medicine and supplies and seeking medical treatment.

Essential businesses may remain open, including churches, but they must adhere to the 10-person and social distancing rules.

Restaurants and food establishments may continue to operate; however, only carry out, pickup and delivery are permitted. Social distancing requirements also have to be met.

Residents are allowed to take walks, bicycle, hunt and fish as long as social distancing is maintained.

“Every county in the state is under a statewide Stay at Home Missouri order,” said Kelli Jones, communications director for the governor’s office.

All Missourians, Jones said, are to follow the statewide order unless their county-implemented stay-at-home orders are “more stringent, but to be truthfully honest, I’m not sure it could be a whole lot more stringent.”

Jones said St. Louis County, for example has its own order, and parts are more stringent, so the residents there have to follow that order.

“The bottom line is (any county order) can’t be less than” what the state has done, Jones said. “They can do more, but they can’t do less.

“If they do more, the people of that county have to follow that” order.

Stoddard County

Stoddard County was the first to enact a stay-at-home order. It went into effect at 12:01 a.m. April 2, and will “continue indefinitely until amended or rescinded.”

“We put ours in place on the second of April, then the governor came out with his,” said Stoddard County Presiding County Commission Danny Talkington. “They are very similar” and include the “same essentials businesses that was listed in what the federal government put out.”

Officials, he said, addressed the “assembling of more than 10 people. We did address that you could do outdoor activities.

“We had in there that churches could assemble outside, if they stay in the vehicles (and) do an outside service.”

Talkington said there were a lot of questions initially.

Those questions, he said, centered around travel, going out and fishing, and other things like that.

“They were just not sure what it meant because we’ve never had one of these before,” Talkington said.

Once people began to understand, “we’ve had good results,” Talkington said. “They seem to be working very well with it.”

As issues come up, Talkington said, county officials will review the order and make any changes.

Carter County

The order enacted in Carter County went into effect simultaneously as the state order at 12:01 a.m. on Monday. Like the state order, it remains in effect until 11:59 p.m. April 24 or until it is extended, rescinded, superseded or amended.

The decision to enact the order, said County Clerk Leona Stephens, was made prior to the governor’s announcement on April 3.

Carter County’s health department administrator and emergency management agency director were “pushing the commission toward a stay-at-home order due to the fact that we were nearing a positive COVID death, and we had a lot of symptomatic people being tested,” Stephens explained.

A 59-year-old man, with underlying medical conditions, died April 4 at a Springfield hospital. He had tested positive for COVID-19 on March 23.

In drafting their order, Stephens said, county officials used an order they “found that had similarities to what we were trying to achieve and just manipulated that a bit to be more like ours.”

The commissioners, Stephens said, chose to wait until the governor announced his stay-at-home order.

“Then, once (Parson) did, they decided; we had ours ready,” Stephens said. “We made sure that ours was in line with what he said and felt comfortable with the verbiage of it” before issuing it.

The orders, she said, are pretty much the same, except Carter County’s has a penalty included for violations, as does Stoddard and Wayne County’s orders. Violations or failure to comply with the orders is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail, up to a $1,000 fine or both.

As the pandemic continues, “you have to continue your life; you just have to take precautions, but you need to make sure you keep your community safe,” Stephens said.

Carter County had three positives “pretty quickly, but we’ve stay there,” she said. “Hopefully, our citizens have been taking this seriously based on the numbers, and they are trying to adhere to the situation … stay at home, wash your hands, don’t touch your face, etc.”

Wayne County

The stay-at-home order for Wayne County went in effect at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday and continues until 11:59 p.m. April 24.

Presiding County Commissioner Brian Polk said he and other officials were waiting for the governor’s stay-at-home order before issuing a county order.

“There’s only one or two minor changes in ours that is different from the state,” Polk said. “Having (an order) specifically for your county enables you to tailor it to the needs of your county,” especially for rural counties, like Wayne.

Having a county order, he said, also helps with enforcement.

“The only other thing is if the state was to rescind their order, if we felt ours should be kept in place, we could keep it in place,” Polk said.

County officials, he said, can amend “it every day if we want to. It specifically says in there it will be looked at and addressed at least on a weekly basis.”