A Message from Mayor Stimpson - April 21
Apr 21st, 2020
Good evening,
It is 9 p.m. on Tuesday, April 21, and I am writing to give you an update on the City of Mobile’s efforts regarding COVID-19.
As of tonight, there are 721 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Mobile County, and 38 deaths attributed to the virus. Please note that the total number of cases continues to rise, evidence that the disease is still spreading in Mobile.
Today we spent much of our time focused on developing plans to reopen businesses in Mobile. Of course we are under a statewide order, issued by Governor Ivey, closing all non-essential businesses until April 30.
Gov. Ivey held a news conference in Montgomery today and announced her intention to keep the order in place, and make a decision on what to re-open by the end of this month.
The City of Mobile, along with the mayors from the 10 largest cities in Alabama, is working closely with her Administration to develop our plan. Our goal is that, once the go-ahead is given, we can get businesses re-opened as safely and as quickly as possible.
It is a delicate balance because we don’t want to see a resurgence in COVID-19 as people return to work. We’ve already lost too much as a community to allow Coronavirus to rebound and take more from us.
Testing is a key piece of the puzzle in figuring out when and how to re-open the economy. We are fortunate in Mobile in that we have obtained test kits at a time when cities across America are desperately seeking them.
As more tests are completed, we are using the data to help us determine who can safely to return to work. As we’ve discussed before, we started with our first responders - police, fire and emergency medical technicians - so that they can keep you safe.
As we acquired more test kits, we expanded to include doctors, nurses and health care workers, who are on the front lines of the COVID-19 battle. We’ve since tested many of our Public Works employees as well as staffers at our local nursing homes.
Now, with an eye toward getting back to work, we are looking at testing employees of businesses such as dentist offices, barber shops and beauty salons. We spent significant time over the past 24 hours talking with restaurant owners and hoteliers, developing a plan to help them recover once the Governor lifts her order.
It’s one thing to give the green light to business owners, but it’s another thing to give customers the confidence that these businesses are safe. So, a key part of our plan will be obtaining personal protective equipment (“PPE”) such as masks and gloves for these workers.
This is a challenge because there is a national shortage of these items, but my team is working hard to find a source for these needed supplies.
We also are spending a significant amount of time sharing information with our partners. Just today, we participated in a Zoom meeting with the Mobile City Council, and we spoke by phone with mayors from the cities across Mobile County to coordinate our response efforts.
We met by phone with leaders from the Mobile County Commission and the Mobile County Health Department, as part of a coordinated response organization called the Unified Command. You will hear more about that tomorrow as we participate in a joint news conference to update the public on our efforts.
We also joined a conference call of mayors and city officials with Congressman Bradley Byrne, to talk about how cities can recover the revenue we are losing to COVID-19. We spent time talking with our city department heads to make sure that city operations are continuing on schedule.
We spoke with leaders of area non-profit groups to make sure we are meeting the needs of our most vulnerable citizens. And, as mentioned before, we spoke with business and community leaders to get their input on how to re-open our economy.
As you can see, we are doing a tremendous amount of collaborating. This can be time-consuming but it is critical to building consensus.
We commit to continue doing all we can to keep you safe while planning our next steps to get our economy going again.
We ask for your patience as we work through this process. We are all eager to return to our normal lives. If we are united, we will get there together.
Sincerely,