NASHVILLE – Despite a recent surge in numbers of COVID-19 patients being hospitalized in Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee said Tuesday he still doesn’t want to impose a statewide mask mandate and is relying instead on encouraging local county mayors to impose such requirements when needed as well as a third advertising campaign to persuade residents to use masks.
“As I’ve said, we give [mayors] the authority to do so” regarding mask mandates, Lee told reporters Tuesday during his weekly news conference. “But our team reaches out and asks them about the different strategies they’re taking and their communities and we encourage them, if they believe they should use that tool, then they should use it.”
The Republican governor, who is himself in quarantine after being exposed last week to a security detail member testing positive for the coronavirus, also said he hopes his new “Choices” ad campaign will persuade Tennesseans to don masks when appropriate.
It reminds “Tennesseans that we all have choices to make that either help or hurt our efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus,” Lee said, noting “masks are one of the many tools outside of social distancing and other tools, and this [public service announcement] will highlight that.”
Messaging works, Lee said.
Lee administration officials were warned by the White House Coronavirus Task Force in an Oct. 11 letter saying a “statewide mask mandate must be implemented to stop the increasing spread among residents in rural and urban areas of Tennessee,” according to a copy of the letter obtained from Knox County health officials by WUOT, a National Public Radio affiliate. The governor had not released the letter.
Tennessee is now ranked fifth nationally for COVID deaths per 100,000 people, WUOT reported. Meanwhile, the Tennessean reported that as of Tuesday, 62 of Tennessee’s 95 counties were reporting weekly positivity rates above 10%, which is the White House threshold for a coronavirus “red zone.” Among the 10 with the highest rates, only Henry County has a mask mandate, according to the Tennessean.
Lee said while he continues to test negative after being exposed on Oct. 14, he plans to continue to remain in quarantine the full 14 days.
“We have people losing their lives to it every day in this state,” the governor said. “We understand the seriousness, and I certainly do. It’s serious to me, so the reality is, and the science of this is, that until 14 days you still have the opportunity to begin to shed the virus so you would be a threat to other people.”
The coronavirus is increasingly hitting rural areas of the state.
A number of physicians and others have called on Lee to impose mask mandates. Last week, Lee’s health commissioner, Lisa Piercey, acknowledged that the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals has jumped 30% in October, bringing the state to a near-record-high number of coronavirus hospitalizations heading into flu season.
Lee doesn’t plan to attend the second and final presidential debate on Thursday between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden as they square off at Belmont University in Nashville. Lee said he doesn’t plan to participate in a Trump fundraiser in Nashville that day either.
The governor’s spokesman, Gillum Ferguson, told the Times Free Press earlier Tuesday that Lee had not planned on attending the debate even prior to his COVID-19 exposure.
Contact Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com or 615-255-0550. Follow him on Twitter @AndySher1.