CDC recommends Boone County residents to wear masks indoors

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

There has been an uptick in Boone County's COVID-19 numbers according to the Columbia/Boone County Department of Public Health and Human Services.

Officials reported that there have been 50 total new coronavirus cases on Wednesday. Boone County reported 40 new cases on Monday.

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) and the CDC are reporting high community transmission levels for COVID-19 in Boone County.

The CDC recommends:

• Wearing a mask in public indoor spaces
• Stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines
• Get tested if you have symptoms
• Additional precautions may be needed for people at high risk for severe illness.

While the CDC is recommending mask usage, local governments have not implemented another mask mandate. However some local downtown Columbia businesses' are already asking customers to wear a mask indoors, and are limiting the number of customers.

Yellow Dog Bookstore is located downtown, and just rolled back its mask requirement to a recommendation a few months ago, but does still ask customers to wear one due to limited space. Janel DeArmond is an employee at the Bookstore, and she said they could require masks again.

DeArmond said, "I mean, I don't make that decision, but it could be possible that we would in the future just based on how long we did require masks, and we are still limiting shoppers to just ten at a time in the shop, which kind of helps."

DeArmond said the book store is just trying to be as safe as possible, and offer's face masks to those who would like to wear one.

Flow's Pharmacy owner Anthony Desha said he doesn't think it is necessary to implement a mask mandate at this time but does believe that there are some people who could benefit from wearing one.

"I just feel like any of the elderly or immunocompromised people that maybe haven't been boosted or haven't gotten their original shots. I think wearing a mask would benefit them," said Desha.

Desha said he is still seeing people buying COVID-19 testing kits and people are still coming in to get the vaccine.

"We're still seeing a decent amount of people come through on Tuesday's and Thursday's to get their vaccine boosters, and in some cases, even still the first and second vaccine," said Desha.

At this time Boone County has not implemented another mask mandate.