COVID-19: the county's public health orders

3 May — 31 December 2020

Order 1-2020 and its successors: St. Joseph County governed its epidemic in 2020 through its health officer's signed public health orders, and the orders survive as documents. Public Health Order 1-2020 was issued on 3 May 2020 by Health Officer Robert M. Einterz, M.D., under Indiana Code 16-20-1 and 16-41-9, to take effect throughout St. Joseph County on 4 May 2020 at 11:59 p.m. and run to 4 July 2020. It required a face covering over nose and mouth of any person entering an enclosed public space or place of business, unless a medical exception made a covering ill-advised or the covering prevented the person delivering or receiving services, and required the covering at all times when six feet of physical distance could not be maintained. The order stated its own intended horizon: it was anticipated to remain in effect until the level of immunity in the county's population was estimated to reach 70 percent, as determined by serological testing of a representative sample.

Enforcement, as Dr. Einterz described it in the press that June, was educational, not punitive: "Really what we're doing is trying to do what is right. We would try to reinforce good behavior, to try to educate the public about the spread of the disease. But we felt that any sort of punitive method would not be effective." Public Health Order 2-2020, issued 29 June 2020, extended the requirements through 7 September 2020. Public Health Order 3-2020, issued 4 September 2020, ran from 8 September through 31 December 2020, keeping the face-covering requirement and adding that any business establishment open to customers make alcohol-based hand sanitizer of at least 60 percent alcohol readily accessible at its entrance and near high-touch surfaces. The county was among the first in Indiana to impose a face-covering requirement — one of four Indiana counties with such an order standing that summer, when the state itself had none — and the orders' course after 31 December 2020, through the state's own later mandates and their end, is state record rather than county document and is not carried here beyond that line.

Sources:

1. St. Joseph County Public Health Order 1-2020, issued 3 May 2020 (in.gov/localhealth/stjosephcounty/files/05-03-20-SJC-Public-Health-Order-1-2020.pdf) — the issuing authority, the effective period (4 May 2020, 11:59 p.m., to 4 July 2020), the face-covering requirement and its exceptions, and the stated 70-percent-immunity horizon; the order's letterhead shows Dr. Robert M. Einterz as health officer and Dr. Mark D. Fox as deputy health officer.
2. St. Joseph County Public Health Order 3-2020, issued 4 September 2020 (in.gov/localhealth/stjosephcounty/files/09-04-20-Public-Health-Order-3-2020.pdf) — the 8 September – 31 December 2020 period, the continued face-covering requirement, and the hand-sanitizer requirement for businesses.
3. Barnes & Thornburg and Taft law-firm bulletins on the Indiana county orders (2020) — Order 2-2020 of 29 June 2020 extending the county's requirements through 7 September 2020, and St. Joseph County's place among the four Indiana counties with face-covering orders that summer.
4. Indianapolis Star / ndinsider.com, "Indiana coronavirus: Why some counties are and are not requiring masks," 21 June 2020 — Dr. Einterz's description of the order's educational enforcement, quoted in the entry.