Lowndes County Adopts New Ordinance In Light Of COVID-19

LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI)- The Lowndes County Board of Supervisors is the latest local government to announce restrictions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

In a special called meeting on Monday, the board passed a resolution and ordinance that mirrors one passed by the Columbus City Council over the weekend.

However, there’s one difference.

In the county all recreational buildings are forced to close at this time, but recreational facilities such as walking tracks will remain open.

The ordinance limits gatherings to no more than 10 people and dining inside restaurants is no longer allowed.

Non-essential businesses such as child-care facilities, barbershops, gyms, and hair salons have to close until further notice.

Six cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in Lowndes County.

Board president Harry Sanders said the ordinance is put in place to help prevent the fatal virus from spreading.

“We can’t cure it right now, but we can slow it down,” said Sanders. “The reason we need to do that is because there’s not enough hospital beds and ventilators in our county to take care of the people if more than 30 or 40 of them need to be on ventilators, we just don’t have the room for them so we need to slow it down.”

The county has also put a new curfew in effect in from 10 P.M. until 6 A.M.

No one can be out unless it’s for essential travel, and they must be over the age of 18.

Essential travel includes traveling to work, to pick up food, to get gas, anything that warrants legitimate reasons to be on the road.

The ordinance carries a fine $1,000 per day and up to 90 days in jail.

Essential businesses such as hospitals, pharmacies, gas stations, grocery stores, are excluded from this ordinance.

These changes will go into effect March 24th beginning at 5:00 PM.