Photo: Two Rivers Public Health Department epidemiologist Dr. Aravind Menon discusses cases by community in Buffalo County.
KEARNEY, Neb. (KGFW) – Two Rivers Public Health Department is going directly to community leaders – asking them to implement local mask mandates.
Leah Gleason, member of Two Rivers’ legal team told Kearney area leaders on a Tuesday Zoom meeting that Gov. Pete Ricketts says he and Nebraska’s chief medical officer will not approve any DHM’s issued by local health departments. Gleason says even if approved, there would be little enforceability in the Two Rivers district anyway.
“Within the district, which included 50-plus municipalities that needed to have these ‘memorandums of understanding,’ various municipalities have signed it, some have not and some have refused to bring it to a vote,” Gleason said. “We’ve also had some municipalities that have decided in the beginning that they were going to agree to it and since have rescinded the ‘memorandum of understanding.’ So, kind of through the district we have a whole patchwork of different MOU’s meaning that it might be a little different in Gibbon versus Kearney, versus Riverdale, versus Pleasanton. And so the enforceability is kind of all over the place. This kind of created a situation that needs to be fixed through more legislative action. And so it’s not exactly a viable route moving forward during the current pandemic.”
That means a mask recommendation is as far as Two Rivers can go.
Board of Health Medical Director, Dr. Brady Beecham, says they hope local leaders will take things further.
“We went as far as we could,” said Dr. Beecham. “And our hope in doing that is to provide support for communities that wanted to take this to the city council or a local board and try to do something that had a little bit more of a mandatory component – that they would feel well supported by the board of health.”
The Two Rivers Public Health Dept. risk dial remains in the ‘red’ or ‘pandemic’ stage – the highest of the four stages. There have been 4,789 total positive cases and 41 deaths since tracking began. More than half of those cases have come in the past 48 days. Individuals 18-29 years-of-age have been the greatest spreader. We’ll hear more on that tomorrow with Two Rivers epidemiologist Dr. Aravind Menon on KGFW’s ‘Morning Report’ at 8 a.m.
