LOOKING AHEAD: What the weekend could bring with university students back
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
As the first week of classes comes to an end for University of Missouri students, there are 57 students with current active COVID-19 cases.
Scott Clardy, a spokesperson for the Columbia/Boone County health department, told ABC 17 in an interview Monday, he expects cases to increase due to the return of students.
"I'll be very surprised if we don't see our numbers go up this weekend even into next week," Clardy said.
Denne Eckel, the office Manager for Lakota Coffee Company, said she is optimistic things will pick up as students continue to come back to Columbia.
"I handle the ordering and we have been busy so I'm just hoping we can get back to normal," she said.
The Boone County health order was extended through Feb. 16 keeping the mask mandate, limited crowd sizes and early closing time for bars and restaurants.
Clardy said with these restrictions in place, the cases numbers might not spike as they did during the beginning of fall semester, hitting a high of 683 on Sept. 5.
"We saw what happened and that just led to more and more cases," he said.
The health department reported 146 new COVID-19 cases for Boone County on Thursday, which is the largest increase since Jan 7.
