Cobb imposes mask mandate at county government buildings

Cobb County Manager Jackie McMorris said that beginning Friday, a mask mandate will be in effect in all government buildings, due to rising COVID-19 case figures.

They include libraries, but outdoor facilities—including county parks and the Mable House Amphitheater—will be exempt from the order.

McMorris said the decision also stems from an increase in COVID-19 cases within the county workforce, but she didn’t specify how many people are affected.

“As the result of what is going on across the nation, the region, and of course here in Cobb, we’ve had to make some tough decisions on what we are going to do here in Cobb County Government,” Dr. McMorris said Tuesday in a statement issued by the county.

The mandate covers county employees, visitors, contractors and vendors, and public meetings also will be socially-distanced, as they were previously. Cobb courthouses have maintained a mask mandate since the pandemic began in March 2020.

There’s not a timetable for ending the mandate, and McMorris said masks will be available for people coming to county facilities who don’t have them.

Cobb had a similar mask mandate for several months last year and early this year, but dropped it when cases began falling during the spring.

However, the rapidly spreading Delta variant of COVID-19 has resulted in the highest transmission rates in Cobb since then.

As of Tuesday, the 14-day average of cases per 100,000 people had soared to more than 600, well above the “high community spread” threshold of 100 cases per 100,000.

“We’re in the second month of this and it just does not seem to be going away,” said Dr. Janet Memark, Director of Cobb and Douglas Public Health in the Cobb statement. “Right now we’re seeing younger people being hospitalized, and we continue to see hospitals that are dangerously low on critical care beds and medical-surgical beds.”

She didn’t offer any figures or further elaborate.

Some cities in Georgia, among them Atlanta, have imposed mask mandates beyond government facilities, including private businesses and other entities that are open to the public.

Cobb has not done that. Former Cobb commission chairman Mike Boyce said last year that while he strongly urged citizens to wear masks in public, he didn’t want to stretch law enforcement to that purpose, and also indicated he wasn’t likely to get his colleagues to agree.

Current chairwoman Lisa Cupid has been wearing masks at public meetings, and indicated in a county-produced video last week that she was considering taking some action.

She didn’t specify what that might be.

More from McMorris and Memark about the mask mandate can be seen in the video below.