Community Corner
St. Louis City Mayor Points Finger At Health Director For Being 'Unwilling' To Ease COVID-19 Restrictions
The city said COVID-19 numbers are not low enough to ease restrictions.
April 18, 2021
Another St. Louis restaurant staple announced it's closing its doors for good. The owner of Wild Flower in the Central West End posted a letter saying the pandemic shut her business down completely and then made operating a business built on hospitality all but impossible.
Wild Flower joins a long list of restaurants that have permanently closed in the last year. "I feel bad for all the restaurants that haven't been able to survive this," said Josh Beal, manager of Layla in The Grove. The city said COVID-19 numbers are not low enough to ease restrictions. The city is currently averaging 37 new cases per day. During Mayor Lyda Krewson's Facebook presser Friday, she pointed the finger at the city's acting health director Dr. Fredrick Echols. "I've been asking Dr. Echols, you know, 'hey, please consider lifting the limitations on bars, restaurants' closing times and just keep in place the mask mandate as well as the social distancing.' With the creeping up in the numbers, he's unwilling to do that," Krewson said. "I get it but the only way to drive those numbers down is have the vaccine and wear your mask, social distance, wash your hands, etc." Echols' office called the rise in the number of reported COVID-19 cases as well as a rise in the seven-day average of cases 'concerning' and said it is necessary to continue COVID-19 mitigation efforts. "By maintaining the COVID-19 restrictions in the City of St. Louis, we work to keep the number of new cases as low as possible," said Kim Vanden Berg, spokesperson for Echols. The restaurants that have survived so far are now running into an unexpected problem. "Business has increased more than we expected it to compared to what we were doing last year and so most of the managers that are still open, we're all looking for help," said Beal. Krewson's office said legally, COVID-19 restrictions are public health orders issued by the health commission and the city's charter granted authority to Echols. Amending, rescinding, and/or changing the heath orders requires a new order from him.
