MARSHALL — Starting this weekend, Minnesotans will be required to wear masks to help slow the spread of COVID-19, according to a new executive order from Gov. Tim Walz.

At a Wednesday news conference that included state officials, business owners and infectious disease experts, the Democratic governor cited support from businesses and health care experts, along with a recent rise in the positive infection rate, for the mandate. Walz said a 90% to 95% compliance rate on the mask order can dramatically reduce the infection rate and slow the spread of the virus statewide.

“This is the way — the cheapest and most effective way — for us to open up our businesses, for us to get our kids back in school, for us to keep our grandparents healthy and for us to get back that life that we all miss so much,” Walz said.

The executive order — which goes into effect on Saturday — requires masks be worn in businesses, public buildings and other indoor spaces where people gather, but allows room for cities to adopt tougher requirements. Children 5 and under are exempt from the order, along with individuals with a medical condition, a mental health condition or disability.

Businesses must post signs to inform customers of the mask requirement and make sure they comply. Violations of the mandate are a petty misdemeanor that comes with a fine of up to $100 for individuals, and a fine of up to $1,000 or up to 90 days in jail for businesses.

However, in Marshall, Public Safety Director Jim Marshall said local police would continue their emphasis on education about the need to wear masks, as opposed to strict enforcement of the order.

“That’s still going to be the message that we push,” Marshall said. Wearing masks and following social distancing recommendations is important to help slow the spread of COVID-19 in the community, Marshall said. “We’re going to encourage people to do the best they can.”

Some businesses in the Marshall area, including Walmart and Menards, had already made their own decisions to require masks before the governor issued the executive order. Others had not, and on Wednesday afternoon, they were still going over the order and learning how their businesses would be affected.

Representatives of Runnings and Marshall Hy-Vee said they would know more about the mask order’s impact today. However, Hy-Vee’s corporate office also announced Wednesday that it will be giving away more than 3 million free masks to customers in its stores as part of an effort to support the CDC’s recommendation to wear masks in public. Starting Monday, Hy-Vee will have employees stationed at the doors of its stores to hand out masks to customers who aren’t already wearing one before shopping.

Lyle Patzer, of Patzer’s Hardware Hank in Marshall, said before Wednesday’s order, he would occasionally have customers who came to the store because masks weren’t required there. But although he liked to be able to make his own decisions as a business owner, following the mask order could make a difference for people’s health, Patzer said.

“I do not see any negative impact,” he said.

At the same time, area legislators said they were hearing lots of concerns about the order from Minnesota businesspeople.

“I’ve been on the phone pretty much constantly,” said Rep. Chris Swedzinski R-Ghent. A lot of the callers are businesspeople with questions about the mask order, he said. “People are very concerned. Business owners don’t know how this is going to operate.” For example, Swedzinski said, it’s not known how the mask order will affect businesses like welding shops, where workers who wear face coverings would be doing so indoors in the heat.

Swedzinski said businesspeople had told him Wednesday that the Minnesota Department of Health’s help line on face covering requirements couldn’t answer their questions.

“My email inbox is filling up pretty rapidly” with messages about the mask order, said Sen. Gary Dahms, R-Redwood Falls. Dahms said in addition to there being questions about the mask order, he said it’s not good that the governor has been making unilateral decisions for the state over the past six months.

“We can’t be making decisions that one size fits everybody, and that’s what’s happening now,” Dahms said. Conditions in rural Minnesota were a lot different than in the Twin Cities metro area, he said.

Minnesota joins 29 other states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico in mandating masks. Cities within the state including Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth and Rochester have already instituted mask mandates of some form prior to Walz’s order.

In a statement Wednesday, GOP Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka criticized the mandate as a “heavy-handed, broad approach that won’t work well for every situation,” citing lower numbers of deaths and intensive care patients outside of the metro area. Gazelka said a mask mandate should be accompanied by the reopening of schools and allowing businesses to operate more freely.

“Each business, school district, and church should be able to decide what works best for their specific needs,” he said in the statement. “‘One (size-fits-all) Minnesota’ is a terrible way to support more than 5 million individuals in our state.”

Walz called Republican pushback on the mandate “wrong on the science” and said GOP leadership had asked him six weeks ago to make decisions like the governors of Florida, Texas and Arizona — three states that are now experiencing some of the largest spikes in cases nationwide in recent weeks.

“At some point in time, we need to recognize had I chosen to listen to that advice rather than the advice of the medical experts, we would be in a much different situation,” Walz told reporters.

The Minnesota Department of Health on Wednesday reported 507 newly confirmed coronavirus cases and four new deaths. Since the pandemic began in March, Minnesota has reported 47,961 total cases and 1,552 deaths. Though Minnesota has seen a steady increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, the upward trend is not as steep as in other hotspots around the country.

— The Associated Press contributed to this story