BATON ROUGE - Weeks after Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome signed an order requiring masks inside Baton Rouge businesses, she says the area is seeing a smaller percentage of residents testing positive for the virus.

According to a statement from the mayor's office Thursday, East Baton Rouge had a 13-percent positivity rate in the weeks leading up to the order. This week, the parish is reporting a rate of nine percent.

“While we are finding more new COVID-19 cases than before the mask mandate, we are pleased with the decrease in our positivity rate. This decrease signals face coverings are helping in our effort to flatten the curve,” Mayor Broome said in the statement. “We are still not where we want to be, but our effort to slow the spread of COVID-19 and the support from both the business community and citizens of this parish, show this executive order has helped us take a large step in the right direction.”

The order, which requires masks inside businesses in Baton Rouge and some other parts of the parish, went into effect July 3 and is scheduled to expire Aug. 3.