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2020
Three orders, dated, on the officer's own authority: Public Health Order 1-2020 was issued 3 May 2020 by Dr. Robert M. Einterz, under Indiana Code 16-20-1 and 16-41-9, effective 4 May 2020 at 11:59 p.m. and running to 4 July 2020. It required face coverings in enclosed public spaces and places of business, and wherever six feet of distance could not be maintained, with medical exceptions. Its stated horizon was epidemiological, not calendrical: it would hold until the county's immunity was estimated at 70 percent by serological testing. Its enforcement was educational, not punitive — Einterz's own account, in the Indianapolis Star of 21 June 2020, of a health officer persuading rather than fining. Order 2-2020, issued 29 June 2020, extended the requirement through 7 September 2020. Order 3-2020, issued 4 September 2020, ran from 8 September to 31 December 2020 and added a second requirement: hand sanitizer of at least 60 percent alcohol at business entrances and near high-touch surfaces.
The county's position among counties: through that summer St. Joseph was one of only four Indiana counties carrying a face-covering order of its own, at a time when the state had none — a county order, issued by a county officer, covering Mishawaka as it covered every place in the county, and printed here as the county frame it was. After 31 December 2020 the course of restriction in this county is the state's record, not the county officer's, and this article ends where his orders end.
Sources
- St. Joseph County Department of Health, Public Health Order 1-2020 (issued 3 May 2020; effective 4 May 2020, 11:59 p.m., to 4 July 2020) — face coverings, medical exceptions, the 70 percent serological horizon; Orders 2-2020 (29 June 2020, through 7 September 2020) and 3-2020 (issued 4 September 2020; 8 September – 31 December 2020; the sanitizer requirement).
- Indianapolis Star, 21 June 2020 — Einterz on educational, not punitive, enforcement; the county one of four in Indiana with its own face-covering order that summer.