In retaliation for a public health directive to wear face coverings to reduce the number of Coloradans dying and ill from COVID-19, the Board of Douglas County Commissioners has ordered the county’s attorney to withdraw the jurisdiction from the regional health department.

“We question the enforceability and efficacy of the mask mandate order, believing that trusting our citizens and business community to continue doing what they do, without a mandate, is the best approach,” said Commissioner Lora Thomas.

On Wednesday, Tri-County Health Department’s Board of Health voted to move toward mandatory face coverings for Arapahoe, Adams and Douglas counties in indoor public spaces as well as outdoors where six feet of distancing cannot occur. The news came as multiple state governors have instituted mask mandates amid drastically escalating coronavirus caseloads nationally. The Douglas County commissioners also said their county would decline to abide by the mask directive.

“Our remarkably favorable public health data, paired with the community’s current 75% mask-wearing voluntary compliance observed by TCHD … led us to this conclusion,” said Commissioner Abe Laydon.

Douglas County has a population of approximately 370,000 residents. As of Thursday, it had experienced 1,078 total COVID-19 infections, according to the Colorado Department of Public Heath and Environment. To date, Uruguay, Montenegro, Myanmar, Vietnam, Zimbabwe and Liberia – all countries with larger populations than Douglas County’s – have had fewer reported coronavirus cases than Douglas County.

The Tri-County mask directive has support in Adams County, where all of the jurisdiction’s representatives to the board of health voted for the policy. Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman also is a strong backer, posting on Twitter that he wishes localities were not able to opt out of the mandate.

“Either it’s important enough from a public health standpoint, to have a mandate or it isn’t. I believe it is,” he wrote. Coffman added that he hoped Gov. Jared Polis would issue a face covering order for the entire Denver metro region.

Polis, who told Coloradans to “wear a damn mask” at a Thursday press conference, has pushed responsibility on enforcing mask-wearing to local governments.

The science on masks as a preventive measure is increasingly clear. A recent study found that wearing masks decreases the wearers’ risk of infection by approximately 65%. Other studies have shown that masks cut the distance that infectious droplets travel from several feet with no covering to a few inches with a covering.

Tri-County began in 1948, serving the residents of Adams, Arapahoe and Jefferson counties. Jeffco left the organization in 1958, and Douglas joined in 1966. Reaction to a tweet from Thomas announcing the county’s decision to leave was overwhelmingly negative.

“Hi! I’m a resident of Douglas County and will now be working as hard as possible to vote you out!” wrote one Twitter user.

“Masks should not be a political issue. We will have people coming into our county from other counties with higher positive cases, this will ensure the spread of the virus,” wrote another. “You have made it harder for residents to go out safely, which will cost our businesses money.”

Responding to one person who asserted that the current commissioners are not representative of the county, Lisa Neal-Graves wrote, “Representation matters. Period.” Neal-Graves is the Democratic candidate running to succeed District II Commissioner Roger Partridge on the Republican-controlled board.

Dissatisfaction in Douglas County with the health department’s efforts to keep people safe also surfaced early in the pandemic, when six Republican state lawmakers wrote to the commissioners asking for a withdrawal from the agency. At the time, the legislators opposed a decision to issue a stay-at-home order, which they deemed a “heavy-handed application of governmental power.”

A study published on July 1 in The Lancet concluded that decisions to stay at home and promote distancing beginning in March saved lives in the United States.