Andrew County Issues Mask Mandate

"We are not a heavy-handed arm of the government," says Fritz Hegeman the Eastern District Commissioner

Masks are now required in public for andrew county residents.the commission announcing the order today -- which will be in effect until january 31st unless circumstances change.kq2's madeline mcclain found out why the commissioners decided to act today.

<<kq2's madeline mcclain reporting:andrew county is as one commissioner put it -- stepping up its game.the county has a public mask order in effect.fritz hegeman, eastern dist.

Commissioner: "there's a certain segment of the population of our constituents who were saying if the situation were bad enough the county would have issued a mask mandate and we wanted to send this signal, well the situation is bad enough."last week we spoke to two of the three commissioners about the issue... they said they were not ready to up the existing recommendation to mask requirement.bob caldwell, andrew co.

Presiding commissioner: "i don't know that we are ready to do that at this point."since then the county added more than 100 new coronavirus cases.eastern district commissioner fritz hegeman says nobody relished making this decision.fritz hegeman, eastern dist.

Commissioner: we are not a heavy-handed arm of the government.it came down to numbers.andrew county health department reports nearly 730 active covid-19 cases and 13 residents were killed by the virus.

Fritz hegeman, eastern dist.

Commissioner: "we reached out to the city of savannah, the health department, the village of country club, and the school districts and decided it was time to maybe re-evaluated and maybe step up our game.

" savannah schools superintendent says if you want children to stay in school then follow hegeman's lead.superintendent eric kurre, savannah r-3: we can keep those kids in school 5 days a week which is the best for their learning, their mental health, and i would say the mental health of alot of our parents who don't have to teach their kids school."if you wear a mask -- it helps keep the numbers down -- keeping the numbers down helps the schools the children, the parents and the businesses.superintendent eric kurre, savannah r-3: if we all went and we all went virtual again what does that do, talk about the health system, what does that do to the nurses and healthcare workers that have kids in our buildings or where we buy know how that happened the first time."fritz hegeman, eastern dist.

Commissioner: "it was time that we strong message to our community that we really need to you agree with it or not, take this seriously because what you do does affect the rest of the community.reporting, madeline mcclain kq2 news with more and more missouri counties issuing mask mandates -- we reached out to the buchanan county commission.they say a mandate has been discussed but no decision has been made.

Currently, the county has a strong recommendation in support of face coverings in public.