Park County residents and visitors — now along with the rest of the state — will continue to be required to wear face coverings in many public settings through at least early January.

On Friday, Park County Health Officer Dr. Aaron Billin announced the local mask mandate that went into effect last month had been extended through Jan. 8, with fewer exceptions. Then on Monday afternoon, Gov. Mark Gordon announced he was enacting a similar order across the entire state of Wyoming. And in a new step that will take effect on Wednesday, Gordon said he was ordering bars and restaurants to close to in-person drinking and dining from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. His office described the move as “reducing hours of businesses where COVID-19 transmission is more likely to occur.”

Additionally, restrictions are being placed on gatherings of more than 10 people and gatherings are generally continuing to be capped at 25% of capacity, up to 100 people. Churches, funeral homes, grocery stores, healthcare providers and other facilities remain exempted from those restrictions.

“Our state and those surrounding us are facing a hospital capacity crisis that now compels us to take additional action,” Gordon said in a Monday statement. He said Wyoming has seen a rise in cases throughout the fall, “to a point where every county is facing critical and dangerous levels of spread of the virus. Too many people have died.”

In November, Wyoming reported 128 deaths related to COVID-19. On Monday, Gordon described the state as being at a “critical juncture.”

“With these actions we can avoid taking the more drastic step of closing schools and businesses,” he said, adding that “science tells us limiting gatherings of groups and using face coverings are effective in slowing transmission of this virus.”

Counties can opt out of the requirements if they meet certain conditions.

Under the revised masking orders, “all business employees must wear a face covering when within 6 feet of other employees, whether the public enters the space or not,” Billin said. Further, while the initial Park County order exempted all minors from the mandate, that exception now only applies to children under the age of 12.

Other exceptions to masking remain in place, including when in a personal office by oneself, when eating at restaurants, when wearing a mask would create a safety risk or if the person has a medical condition that prevents them from wearing one.

Local situation

On Friday, Billin said he supported the extension of the local mask mandate because “we continue to see a significant number of hospitalizations and deaths in Park County related to COVID-19.”

The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Park County sank to the lowest level in months on Nov. 28-29, with only two patients between Powell Valley Healthcare and Cody Regional Health.

However, by Monday that figure had shot back up to 15 — the new high for the pandemic — with nine COVID-19 patients in Cody and five in Powell. There were 190 active infections in Park County as of Saturday, Billin said, which was also a new record.

“Daily new cases are down in Park County,” he said, “but the numbers for active cases, hospitalizations, and deaths lag behind this.”

Billin said there’s been a “very significant outbreak of COVID-19” at Rocky Mountain Manor in Powell, with “multiple older residents testing positive and being hospitalized.”

The facility offers apartments to those 55 and older.

“Please visit [the manor] only if absolutely necessary and with a mask on and physical distancing,” Billin wrote in a Friday Facebook post. “This is a high risk population and they need the community’s help right now.”

Health officials have tied the deaths of seven Park County residents to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, coming among more than 1,400 confirmed and probable cases logged since March. All but one of the deaths involved elderly residents and at least four also had underlying health conditions; they are at the greatest risk of becoming seriously ill from the novel coronavirus, health officials say.

Wearing masks when coming into close contact with others is just one precaution that health officials have urged to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. Other recommended measures include keeping 6 feet of distance from people outside your household, avoiding large gatherings (the state currently has a 100-person cap on most events), frequently washing hands and staying home when sick.

Billin said there’s been a “large increase in mask wearing in Park County” since the mandate took effect Nov. 18, along with “a significant decrease in COVID-19 transmission.”

The day the mandate went into effect, there had been a total of 351 confirmed or probable cases logged in the county in the preceding two weeks, according to state data, an average of more than 25 per day. In the two weeks following the order, that figure fell by about a third, to 264 new cases or an average of less than 18 per day. The 14-day average was back at more than 21 daily cases as of Monday.

Billin had always wanted the mask mandate to run through the holiday season, but when the initial order went through the approval process at the state level, it wound up being shortened to a 17-day run. State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist signed off on the extension Thursday.

GOP asks for order to be nullified

At about the same time Billin announced the continuation of the local mandate on Friday, Park County Republican Party leaders again called upon Billin to withdraw it — or for county commissioners to “nullify this unconstitutional order, in haste, at their earliest opportunity.”

Although Commissioner Lee Livingston has expressed skepticism about requiring masks, preferring to encourage them, the all-Republican board has generally been supportive; Billin said Friday extending the order had “the support of the majority of the county commission.”

The Park County Republican Party’s six-member executive committee initially denounced the “unacceptable, outrageous” mandate on Nov. 23 and the party’s larger central committee ratified their resolution Thursday night. They say Billin exceeded his authority by “[forcing] mask-wearing on the free people of Park County” and complain he made “an end run around” elected officials while not soliciting public input.

The party has also accused Billin and Public Health Nurse Manager Bill Crampton of “essentially threatening business owners with closure should they not comply with the health officer’s order.” The resolution claims the men made those threats in a Nov. 17 appearance on the KODI 1400 AM program, Speak Your Piece.

On the program, Crampton and Billin said it was their belief that, if counties didn’t issue local restrictions like mask mandates, Gov. Gordon would again order some businesses to close across Wyoming.

“So you got a choice,” Crampton said at one point. “You can put up with the irritation of the mask, or you cannot have your business open.”

Vince Vanata, the Park County Republican Party’s secretary and a member of the executive committee, later called in to Speak Your Piece and accused the health officials of having threatened businesses with closure if they didn’t require masks.

“No, there’s no threat,” Billin replied.

“You are really good at twisting our words,” said Crampton. “The governor on Friday [Nov. 13] indicated that if something wasn’t done by the local level, he was going to have to do something more stringent. We’re trying to prevent that.”

In reviewing a transcript of the program, the Tribune found no remarks from Billin nor Crampton in which they threatened closure or any other negative consequences for businesses that failed to comply with the new mandate.

Public health orders have the force of law, with violations theoretically punishable as misdemeanor crimes, and the mask mandate is no exception. However, leaders at the Park County Sheriff’s Office, Powell Police Department and Cody Police Department have all said they will focus on education and voluntary compliance and “only take the appropriate enforcement action if necessary.”

Although numerous maskless people can be seen in Park County businesses on a daily basis, there have been no citations issued for noncompliance.

‘A few more months’

In a Friday comment on Billin’s Facebook page, Lisa Horton of Powell asked “when do we anticipate this to be over?”

“The people are growing weary!” she wrote.

“No one knows the answer to that question right now,” Billin responded. He said the best plan “is accelerated herd immunity through vaccination,” saying the first doses are expected in Park County soon.

In an interview that aired Friday on Wyoming Public Radio, Dr. Harrist encouraged residents to “sort of hunker down” for a few more months. However, “I think people should be very hopeful about the vaccine,” she said, adding, “I really think that we are able to look at that as a light at the end of a tunnel, we have an end in sight at this point ...”