With the omicron variant of COVID-19 more easily passing from person to person, health officials in Hancock County worry of another large wave of COVID-19 cases over the next two weeks.
"All of us coming back from what we've done in the last few weeks could be the perfect storm for omicron to hit bad, and we don't want this to happen," Hancock Public Health commissioner Karim Baroudi said.
Baroudi says he will strongly recommend local schools implement a mandatory mask policy.
At the Blanchard Valley Health System, they have decided to no longer allow patients and visitors to wear cloth masks, as the quality control of homemade or store-bought cloth masks is too inconsistent.
For the foreseeable future, you'll have to have a paper surgical mask or an N-95.
BVHS says they will supply surgical masks at no charge.
"Staying with that higher standard, that allows us to ensure protection and use the most appropriate face mask as patients are coming into our facility," BVHS Chief Medical Officer Dr. Renee Smith said.
Over the weekend and through Monday, Hancock County has already broken its record for new cases of coronavirus. You can see the numbers here.
"You can tell from the characteristic of the spike we had. On Sunday we added 157 cases, yesterday we added 120 cases. And those are all-time highs for our county since the beginning of the pandemic," Baroudi said.
"The question will be, will that be offset by just the sheer number of people who are becoming infected, and still seeing that increase in hospitalizations that are going to be challenging to manage," Smith said.