Our Safer at Home order expires on Monday, June 1st. At that time, there will be no more business closures. Everyone will be allowed to
operate.
There will still be health and safety guidelines for people to follow, but we cannot have an endless shutdown. We have to act with courage, trusting the
people of Mississippi to act responsibly.
Here is what our new posture will look like:
We are replacing our Safer at Home order with a “Safe Return” order.
All businesses will be open, but they will have to follow the strict health rules that we have set forward. Every business that we have reopened over the
past several weeks has guidelines in place to help them open safely.
If you are part of a vulnerable population, such as over 65 or with a pre-existing condition, we still ask you to stay at home as often as possible.
We have two rules for gatherings: one where social distancing is possible and one where it is not. If you can cluster groups that are frequently in contact
together in a socially distant way, you can have indoor gatherings of 50 and outdoor gatherings of up to 100. For example: if you have a baseball tournament,
as long as coaches and spectators stay socially distanced, you could have up to 100 around a field.
When social distancing is not possible, which let’s be honest is most of the time, indoor gatherings are limited to groups of 20 and outdoor gatherings
are limited to groups of 50.
Health care procedures will be allowed—provided that the hospital reserves 25% of their space for COVID-19 patients. That will help us to honor our
original goal: to prevent our health care system from becoming overwhelmed.
Schools may open their buildings for summer programs to make up for time lost during distance learning.
Local governments may be more strict, but we believe that this is the best path for our state at this time.
There are no perfect options, but freedom with risk is better than a prolonged shut down that threatens livelihoods and lives through government action.
I trust the people of Mississippi. I know that you want to do right.We had our first COVID-19 case in March. Three months later, it is time to allow
everyone to return to work–understanding that their actions are the difference between life, health, disease, and death for themselves and their neighbors.
That is called personal responsibility, and it is the backbone of our system of government.
