Kate Ratigan, who owns the Black Crow restaurant in downtown Beatrice, expressed concern that mandates hurt local businesses. “If this is dramatically affecting Beatrice, how many deaths have happened in Beatrice because of the COVID virus?,” she said. Please do not delude yourself to think that you’re helping anybody.”Amy Southwick also expressed a desire to let the mandate expire, saying many people aren’t using them properly to begin with. “Before we mandate something I think we should look into the possibility of could this contribute to the spread and do exactly the opposite of what we want it to do? There is a lot of tunnel vision in our society as a whole when it comes to COVID...When you put a mask mandate, you put a fear into society.”The vote to instate another mask mandate was approved unanimously, with Reed abstaining.

Source: Daily Sun December 11, 2020 19:07 UTC