Staff Photo by Matt Hamilton / Mayor Jim Coppinger speaks during a news conference Tuesday at the Hamilton County Health Department. Coppinger renewed a mask mandate through Nov. 22 for the county on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020.With Hamilton County’s now 4-month-old mask mandate set to expire this week, County Mayor Jim Coppinger is considering extended regulations, despite his own political beliefs and fractured citizen feedback.
In a Times Free Press survey of 267 Hamilton County voters in the November general election, about half of the citizens interviewed said they agree with the degree of regulation in the county to prevent the virus.
“I think people are mostly getting used to living with this virus, which is a really positive thing to see,” Coppinger said Thursday, about a week before the county’s mask mandate is up for expiration. “There are some people letting their guard down, which we really don’t want to see. But overall, most people are learning to live with it.”
Coppinger, who has worked in local government for most of his life, including about a decade as Hamilton County mayor, has spent the majority of the year focused on his most difficult task yet: regulating the county’s businesses and more than 350,000 residents throughout the pandemic.