Mask Mandates

St. Louis officials cited the rise in transmission of coronavirus cases and other respiratory illnesses for the updated mandate.

While the coronavirus is circulating less widely than in previous years, an uptick in hospital admissions of COVID-19 patients and a number of employees getting sick with the virus, flu and other illnesses led BJC to put the mask requirement in place, system officials said.

After a Cole County judge invalidated the regulations in 2021, then-Attorney General Eric Schmitt decided not to appeal the case. Local governments, which had used their authority granted by the regulations to issue pandemic-era restrictions such as mask mandates, wanted the right to defend them in court.

The Lee’s Summit School District won its countersuit against the then-Missouri attorney general when a judge ruled Eric Schmitt could not order schools to cease their COVID mitigation efforts.

Three years into the COVID pandemic, some St. Louis-area hospitals have decided to drop mask requirements, citing decreased infection levels.

St. Louis County’s Department of Public Health director is stepping down from his post in early September. The county will search for a new leader before his departure.

St. Louis is seeing rising numbers of coronavirus cases, and the city’s health director is again considering recommending public health measures, including mask requirements, to protect people from the virus.

The districts facing new litigation have all been previously sued by Schmitt and include the Special School District of St. Louis County, Maplewood Richmond Heights, Clayton, Ladue, Webster Groves and Mehlville.

Eric Schmitt has refused to drop three of his 47 lawsuits against school districts, while the Lee’s Summit district filed a counterclaim against the attorney general.

Despite the politicized rhetoric around masking in schools, federal judges have ruled that schools can be required by law to protect medically vulnerable children.