Gov. Mike Parson has ended Missouri’s COVID-19 related state of emergency. During the state of emergency, the state waived about 600 regulations, many of those helped Missouri hospitals.

Some critics have questioned why the governor would end the state of emergency when the hospitalization rate involving COVID-19 patients is climbing.

Gov. Mike Parson

On Missourinet affiliate KDRO in Sedalia, Parson defended his decision.

“Yeah, well, I think the state of emergency, I think there are people reading into that a lot more than what it was. Really the reason the State Emergency was in effect in the first place is because of the 600 regulations we had waived since the beginning. The other thing was it give (sic) us the ability to call out the national guard if we need the National Guard. So, we’re still under a federal order. So, we can call out the National Guard at any time, so I don’t need that anymore. The other thing is, if I want to call another executive order, I can do that at any time,” said Parson.

The governor said ending the executive order was only a matter of time.

“We’re going to have to move forward dealing with COVID-19, we’re going to have to move forward with that. In the healthcare industry, we’ll have to do that. Government needs to play a support role, but government has to get out of the business of being in charge of this or trying to mandate, do the mandates or figure out how we’re going to get out of this. We got to work together to get this done,” said the Governor.

Parson said now that the Legislature is back in session, lawmakers should get rid of the roughly 600 regulations he waived during the earlier days of the pandemic.

“And that’s their job to do. But executive orders are never made to stay in for like two years. And that’s kind of what we’ve been under at some point, you had to let it go,” he said.

Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones and St. Louis County Executive Sam Page are calling for reinstatement of the order. The St. Louis area Democrats said in a statement, “Governor Parson is weakening one of the few ways his administration was helping to save lives by providing our hospital systems with the flexibility they need to manage this crisis.”

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