Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry publicly addressed his face mask mandate for the first time July 1 in a virtual address to City Council.
Curry used the meeting to ask Duval County residents to exercise personal responsibility and abide by his executive proclamation to wear masks in indoor public spaces where 6-foot social distancing isn’t possible.
Curry’s senior staff members made the announcement June 29 that he had issued the face mask mandate to slow the spike in Florida’s COVID-19 cases.
On vacation with his family July 1, Curry did not take questions from Council members, but he provided an update on the city’s COVID-19 statistics and urged health and safety precautions.
“We continue to urge everyone to exercise personal responsibility and do their part to help stop the virus,” Curry said. “I remind you that, even before the mandate, we have a long record in this city as we navigated this, of encouraging people to wear their masks and now it’s mandatory, so let’s just do the right thing and help each other out.”
Curry used city code section 674 to make his proclamation and mask order. The code gives the mayor authority to declare a civil state of emergency.
He used the same code section to order the citywide curfew May 31 during Downtown racial justice and police brutality protests that stemmed from the death of George Floyd while in custody in Minneapolis.
Curry was required by the code to convene the July 1 meeting to brief Council on his state-of-emergency order.
Council member Aaron Bowman said July 1 that he supports the mayor’s order but said he was worried that city officials’ interpretation of the code could be “a little bit of a stretch.”
“The ‘declaration of policy’ under section 674.101 gives the mayor broad authority to declare the state of emergency for any natural or man-made disasters and emergencies,” City Deputy General Counsel Jason Teal said. “While it doesn’t specifically mention a pandemic being one of the things to trigger a state of emergency, we did get some guidance from the state statute.”
Teal said Florida state rules give the governor similar powers with the addition of language for a health care emergency.
“I just want to make sure we’re not setting ourselves up for legal action using (code section) 674 which specifically doesn’t say anything about health,” Bowman said.
The mayor’s proclamation doesn’t carry an enforcement mechanism. City Chief of Staff Jordan Elsbury repeated Curry’s call for personal responsibility to follow the order.
“We finally reached the point where the level of compliance dictated the mandate,” Elsbury said.
The July 1 meeting was Tommy Hazouri’s first as Council president. He said in a phone interview before the meeting that he doesn’t think a civil enforcement option or penalty for those not wearing a mask is necessary.
Hazouri supports the mayor’s decision but if officials notice widespread noncompliance, Curry or a Council member could file legislation to add civil citations.
“I don’t think we’re there yet, but if it starts to get worse or people aren’t adhering to it, somebody will come back with legislation,” Hazouri said.
Confirmed COVID-19 cases in a 24-hour period dropped in Duval County from 724 reported on June 27 to 267 on June 30, according to the Florida Department of Health.
In total, Duval County has confirmed 6,480 cases of coronavirus and 67 deaths since the pandemic began. Curry said there are 237 COVID-19-positive patients in local hospitals.
For the first time, Curry released the number of Duval County intensive care unit patients being treated for COVID-19. There were 42 cases as of 4:15 p.m. July 1.
The city has been saying that those numbers were proprietary hospital information and their release could violate federal HIPAA privacy laws.
The state’s daily ICU bed census states that 67 of Duval County’s 426 ICU beds, or 15.73%, were available July 1.
Curry and Gov. Ron DeSantis said through the pandemic that state and local stay-at-home orders and business capacity restrictions were meant to flatten the curve and keep from overwhelming hospitals.
“I can tell you, with those patients in our hospitals, and with those that are in ICU, we have plenty of capacity in our systems as we navigate this virus and do everything we can to slow and stop the spread,” Curry said.
Council member Danny Becton was the only Council member to voice opposition to Curry’s order. He questioned the science behind face masks’ ability to protect individuals.
City Chief Administrative Officer Brian Hughes said local hospital officials unanimously endorse face coverings.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance states that face masks can block droplets that spread the virus from person to person, even from those who are asymptomatic.
“Short of shutting everything down again like we did two or three months ago, masks are a good mitigator to continued community spread,” Hughes said. “We rely on their science.”
The city allocated $35 million in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act money to increase Duval County’s testing capacity to two dozen locations. Officials plan to move outdoor locations, including the Lot J drive-thru site at TIAA Bank Field, to a weather-hardened indoor location.
Curry said July 1 that the city will have six more test sites open within two weeks in Mandarin, Arlington, the Westside, the Northside and the Beaches.
Duval County sites have administered more than 105,000 tests since mid-March, according to Curry.
Hughes said increased testing has created a backlog at the private laboratories processing results.
He said the few sites in Duval County with same-day turnaround are in local hospitals, such as UF Health Jacksonville and Ascension St. Vincent’s, and are reserved for patients with the most severe symptoms.