ST. LOUIS, May 14, 2020 – Buses and some businesses will be able to turn people away for not wearing masks when public health restrictions are lifted on Monday, May 18 in St. Louis County and the City of St. Louis.
That means people who can’t afford or find masks will be denied services that they desperately need, said Rebeccah Bennett, founder and principal of Emerging Wisdom and InPower Institute. When Bennett learned about this requirement on May 6, she immediately started firing off emails, she said.
“What we require we must support,” Bennett told The St. Louis American. “We should not as a society require protections that are not readily accessible or affordable for our most vulnerable without doing everything we can to make them widely available.”
Bennett is the community engagement and outreach lead for PrepareSTL — the joint protection and education campaign for the City of St. Louis Department of Health and the Saint Louis County Department of Public Health. It’s organized by the Regional Health Commission and powered by Missouri Foundation for Health.