Citing the low positivity rate throughout the county, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings shared that all local COVID-19 mandates will likely be lifted on Saturday, June 5.
Demings is sticking to his three-tiered plan for reopening, which would lift all local masking and social distancing mandates if the county recorded a rolling 14-day coronavirus positivity rate below 5%. The positivity rate has been below 5% for the last 13 days. Demings announced that the county’s local state of emergency has been lifted during his annual State of the County address on Friday morning.
“We’re back. We’re back on course!” Demings said of the move.
Earlier this week, Demings shared that 55% of the county’s eligible residents had received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. That’s well below the ultimate goal of nearly full vaccination, but it’s a promising sign for things returning to normal. While Gov. Ron DeSantis took the teeth out of all local mandates with an executive order that made them unenforceable, Demings continued to encourage masking and social distancing locally.
[content-3]“Under phase 2, individuals are not required by the county to wear a facial covering while outside, outdoors, and we still recommend that individuals, if they’re indoors, socially distance and wear facial coverings, while, when we reach phase 3, there will be no county-based mandates, requirements for individuals to wear facial coverings, while indoors. There still will be CDC guidelines,” Demings said of the upcoming lifting of restrictions.
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This article appears in Jun 2-8, 2021.