Judge Trevino orders mandatory use of facial coverings in Cameron County

Updated: July 2, 2020

***Shopper wearing a face mask due to the Coronavirus pandemic.*** Photo: Nickolay Romensky / Wikimedia Commons

By NELDA BRIONES
LFN

With positive cases of COVID-19 on the rise in recent weeks, Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino, Jr. released an amended emergency management order on June 17, calling for the mandatory use of facial coverings. The new edict officially went into effect on June 19.

In the order, the Judge stated that all business and commercial entities in Cameron County that provide goods and services to the general public must develop and implement a health and safety policy where the utilization of a facial covering is required, and other measures to reduce and control the spread of COVID-19, such as temperature checks or health screenings is implemented.

All commercial entities must post the health and safety policy in a visible location sufficient to provide notice to employees and visitors. A failure to develop and implement a policy within five calendar days following the effective date may result in a fine not to exceed $500 for each violation.
Also following the facial covering recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, all people 10 years or older shall wear a facial covering over their nose and mouth when in public and when working in areas of close proximity.

All Cameron County employees and visitors, when in a county building, are mandated to properly utilize a facial covering. All Cameron County residents should continue to maintain the social distancing guidelines of at least six feet apart when in public, and practice good hygiene etiquette.

Businesses here in the Valley have already begun reducing the number of people entering a business or restaurant, or fully closing their establishments and resuming takeout and pickup only.

Many blame the recent efforts to relax restrictions and revive businesses as the reason for the increased number of positive COVID-19 cases. Also, with the relaxed restrictions on South Padre Island that had thousands of visitors head to the island on Memorial Day weekend.

Beach goers were not mandated, at the time, to wear masks, so crowds of people gathered on the beaches unprotected.

In the past week, Cameron County had several free testing sites available at different locations within the county, including La Feria and Los Fresnos. In La Feria, a mobile test collection site was opened four times in the past few weeks at the La Feria Dome on Pancho Maples Drive, including just June 20 and 21.

According to the worldometer, a website that provides global COVID-19 statistics, Texas had a total of 99,567 cases of Coronavirus, 2,111 deaths and 62,368 recoveries as of June 18.