In addition to our normal news coverage, What Now Atlanta is tracking ways Atlanta’s businesses are adapting to the novel coronavirus and the challenges it brings to brick-and-mortars.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Wednesday evening signed an Executive Order mandating that residents wear masks in public joining Athens, East Point, and Savannah in defying Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp who is only “urging”Georgians to wear face coverings rather than requiring it. The Order also prohibits gatherings of more than 10 people in the City.
“We will continue to take active measures to help slow the spread of COVID-19 infections in Atlanta,” Mayor Bottoms said in a press release after the order was signed. “Public health experts overwhelmingly agree that wearing a face-covering helps slow the spread of this sometimes deadly virus.”
The C.D.C. recommends “that people wear cloth face coverings in public settings when around people outside of their household, especially when other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain.”
The City of Atlanta plans to provide face coverings to the general public through funding under the CARES Act. The face coverings will be available at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, City of Atlanta homeless partners’ facilities and shelters, and food pick-up locations. Atlanta Fire and Rescue will also work with community partners on the distribution of face coverings to Atlanta residents.
Kemp’s emergency powers superseded that of local municipalities but it seems unlikely that the Governor will block or challenge the Mayor’s order based on comments he made Tuesday.
“I realize that many on this call have different opinions on the appropriate response to this pandemic, and that’s fine,” Kemp said in a conference call Tuesday with officials of local municipalities. “But we all agree that masks are good and can help stop the spread. We all know that social distancing makes it hard for the virus to travel. We agree that handwashing can limit exposure. So instead of mandates, I’m asking you to join me in raising awareness.”
Under the Executive Order, “all persons within the jurisdiction of the City of Atlanta shall wear a mask or a cloth face covering over the nose and mouth when inside a commercial entity or other building or space open to the public, or when in an outdoor public space, wherever it is not feasible to maintain appropriate social distancing from another person not in the same household.”
There are some exceptions to who has to wear masks under this mandate: any person younger than ten; any person with a medical condition or disability that prevents the wearing or a mask or face covering; any person while the person is consuming food or drink, or is smoking; any person while the person is in a personal motor vehicle; any person obtaining a service that requires temporary removal of the mask or face covering for security surveillance, screening, or a need for specific access to the face, such as while visiting a bank or while obtaining a personal care service involving the face or head, but only to the extent necessary for the temporary removal; any person while the person is in a swimming pool; any person who is voting, assisting a voter, serving as a poll watcher, or actively administering an election; any person while the person is speaking for a broadcast or to an audience.
There isn’t currently a penalty for violating the order, the Mayor’s office confirmed in an email to What Now Atlanta.
“I specifically asked our governor about allowing Atlanta to go forward with mandating masks in our city, he refused,” Bottoms told MSNBC Wednesday morning ahead of signing the mandate. “Other cities have taken the approach that they are going to defy the governor’s executive order and Savannah has done it, some other cities have done it and Atlanta is going to do it today.”
The order arrives a few days after Bottoms announced both she and her husband tested positive for COVID-19.
Click here to read the Executive Order in its entirety.
[Editor’s note: The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is rapidly evolving as is its effect on Atlanta, and the City’s businesses and its residents. Click here for What Now Atlanta’s ongoing coverage of the crisis. For guidance and updates on the pandemic, please visit the C.D.C. website.]
24 Responses
Ahahhaha. This is soooo entertaining!
She ain’t got a leg to stand on and she knows it although I do agree with her and think masks are necessary.
People are going to ignore Kemp. They know he is actively trying to kill people and is just sucking up to the psychopath in the white supremacist house. Perhaps that’s his game. Kemp is trying to kill black people and minorities because he knows they suffer more from the virus. Kemp cheated to steal the election by suppressing the black vote so why not go a step further and just start killing them. Hopefully people are smarter than this. People know wearing their masks in public is the only tool we have to fight the Trump Virus since Republicans are trying to kill as many people as possible before November
It’s one thing to disagree with Kemp, even vehemently, but this post is legitimately insane.
A little extreme, but politicians’ indifference and negligence is certainly leading to excess deaths in this situation. I can’t help but feel that indifference is partially fueled by a perception that the virus isn’t affecting “their people” (initially it was mainly affecting cities and rural minorities). In this country we forgot that politicians aren’t just mascots – sometimes they’re called to make life and death decisions on our behalf.
I don’t think it’s indifference, I think it’s very intentional.
The mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging anti-science crew think this is a giant
conspiracy put on by the liberals.
Just look at their leader in the White House– he’s made this out to be a conspiracy since day one.
Defending Gov. Clownshoes is the last thing I want to do, but one person’s “indifference and negligence” can be another person’s good faith effort to balance the virus against protecting the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. It’s incredibly reckless and frankly disgusting to say he’s “trying to kill black people.”
Since Kemp lifted the stay at home on April 23, there’s been a chorus of the “wait two weeks” crowd claiming we’re on the verge of mass death thanks to his exercise in human sacrifice … except it never happened. Check out the daily deaths charts, especially the 7-day average. There’s no way to look at that chart and identify when the lockdown was lifted. You can see a post-protest spike but deaths are still lower three months post lockdown. Disagree with Kemp all you want but if he’s trying to mass murder people he’s not doing a good job.
Ignore kemp? Ignore what exactly? He says you should wear masks, but does not want to mandate it.. If you decide to wear a mask you are listening to Kemps advice, if you don’t wear a mask you are ignoring Kemp, but not breaking state law.
The part where Kemp said mask orders implemented by cities were invalid.
Sure he’s saying that you SHOULD wear a mask, but he’s also giving cover to the many individuals and businesses that don’t want to – even when it endangers others.
Sure.. but my point still stands.. he said “people are going to ignore” not cities, so still doesn’t make sense.. And as for cities, even if they want to enforce the use of wearing a mask in public and defying the state, there are not enough officers for that, also my feeling right now is that local police, such as the APD are not feeling much love for their mayors right now anyway.. And crime is high, you think their concern is watching who is not wearing a mask in public?
All fair points. I don’t disagree. Except hasn’t crime dropped off this year? There’s a lot of tension, and a lot of high profile cases that make the news for one reason or another, but it was my understanding that crime is actually down.
Yea no idea honestly if crime overall has dropped this year so far.. But my feeling, based on what iv’e seen and read so far is quite a spike this month and last month in overall crime. I guess time will tell, and we will get a clearer picture later on.
Ran across an article that seemed to – at least partially – answer this.
https://www.11alive.com/article/news/crime/shootings-up-traffic-stops-and-drug-arrests-down-during-period-of-blue-flu/85-b1c3900b-2d7a-42dc-a60c-5db6c1a5b337
Compared to last year, the take-away seems to be: less arrests (attributable to the police sick-out and increased caution in light of evolving rules of engagement), less violet crimes (especially burglary, rape, and robbery), many more shootings, and about the same amount of murders (apparently the shooters aren’t especially accurate).
The thing is, if COA had/has a mandatory mask order, then restaurants, and businesses wouldn’t have to have ad nauseam conversations/arguments with customers as to why it’s important to their employees, and fellow
customers, that you wear a mask.A lot of these people are in minimum wage positions, and are still considered essential. So basically they don’t have a lot of choice about whether they go to work or not.
Kemp thinks that making masks mandatory in the COA is going to bring
businesses to a grinding halt– it won’t. Kemp wants business as usual so that unemployment etc doesn’t bankrupt the state. I understand that, and I also
understand that the COA is a very different area than rural cities.
I trust the GA city’s mayors to make the right decision for their communities.
It’s a mask FFS. We’ve all gotta stop at stop signs, motorcyclists must wear a helmet, we all gotta wear a seatbelt, etc.
It’s just a mask!?!?
Why can’t we all just work together and try and put an end to this disease? Geez, you’d think your guns were being taken away from you or something…
Have some respect for your fellow citizens, and wear a mask in public places where social distancing isn’t an option!
Yes, he is saying the cities can not force you to wear a mask, not that you shouldn’t. This is because some of these mandates are restrictive to businesses, Atlanta tried to roll back opening and shut businesses too. With GA slammed with unemployment. Atlanta is going to have mass evictions as soon as the courts reopen, etc.
We can’t continue with just fighting a virus without fixing these other things. 10% of the state has likely had the virus, the only 0.16% of the state has had the virus bad enough to seek help. However 17% of the state is unable to pay bills and/or work. Many are unable to pay rent and mortgages. You can’t fix just one thing because the others aren’t important to you.
That all sounds very complicated. What’s not complicated is just wearing a mask during a global pandemic. (And not interfering with efforts to get more people to wear them).
The reason mask-wearing should be mandated is because not wearing a mask puts others at risk. If not wearing a mask only potentially hurt the person not wearing a mask, then Kemp’s recommendation would make complete sense. But since one person deciding not to wear a mask increases the risk for other people, it should be mandatory for everyone. Mayor Bottoms is taking her responsibility for the health and safety of her constituents seriously.
By getting Covid and then going to a press conference with a room full of people and taking her mask off exposing people to the virus? On what planet is that behavior responsible?
How many times are you going to post this?
I guess I’ll re-hash all these points:
Obviously she wasn’t aware she had Covid at the time or she’d have been in self-quarantine.
Taking your mask off while giving addresses is the norm.
Here’s Angela Merkel doing it (in a country with 300 new daily cases compared to our 60,000 per day):
https://youtu.be/yA8EeeatORk?t=392
Here’s Kemp doing it:
https://youtu.be/FelvY6rF1z4?t=856
In any case, it has no bearing on whether the policies she’s implementing are based on best practices for health and safety.
She knew she was very likely Covid-19 positive and has even admitted such. Neither Kemp nor Merkel have Covid-19 or have gone to a press conference Covid-19 positive and become a super spreader. Your excuses and deflections won’t work here. She was extremely negligent and can’t be trusted on anything Covid-19 related.
I think I would have remembered her ‘admitting’ that– got a source?
Yeah, that’s a big accusation which I’m sure will be continue to be backed by absolutely no evidence…
LOL she doesn’t know how this works. This is ignominious at this point. We have a Mayor who doesn’t understand the hierarchy of government.
Kemp is such a D!CK.