The towns of Lynnfield, Marblehead, Nahant and the City of Peabody have become the latest local communities to rescind their mask mandates.
This follows decisions by Lynn, Salem, Saugus and Swampscott officials, who voted to end their communities’ respective indoor-mask requirements earlier this week.
Lynnfield
In a joint Zoom meeting on Thursday, the Lynnfield Board of Health and Select Board voted to rescind its Aug. 18, 2021 regulation mandating masks in all town buildings. The rescissions went into effect immediately. When offered a chance to comment during public participation, residents were silent.
Prior to the votes, Lynnfield Emergency Management Director and Fire Chief Glenn Davis presented a COVID update.
“There has been a dramatic decrease in positive cases,” Davis said. “We are following suit with the rest of Massachusetts in seeing declining positive cases.”
Davis said the number of cases over the last seven days has dropped from 98 as of Jan. 28 to 26 as of Monday. The number of cases over the last 14 days has dropped from 195 to 110 out of the population of 13,000. Davis also noted that the number of COVID hospitalizations has dropped significantly, which is a key indicator along with wastewater testing at the Deer Island plant.
Board of Health Chair Dr. Rocco Iocco noted the many “painful sacrifices” that have been made over the last two years and lauded the work of the Emergency Management team under Davis.
“We certainly are not over with the pandemic, but things are trending in the correct way as we have more tools to combat this with testing, high vaccination rates and some antiviral (treatments),” Iocco said. “I think it’s appropriate at this point to return to as normal a life as we can.”
Select Board Chair Dick Dalton said the community still needs to be cautious.
“While the pandemic is not over, we have to continue to be vigilant about routine best practices,” he said. “I believe it is time to take the steps necessary to return, as much as possible, to our normal lives.”
Marblehead
The Board of Health in Marblehead took some heat from residents in the audience before unanimously voting to rescind the mask mandate with a strong recommendation for continued masking indoors until the next time the board discusses it on March 8.
More than 125 people, besides the three-member board and Director of Public Health Andrew Petty, tuned into the virtual meeting on Friday afternoon.
Petty gave the latest update on COVID-19 cases at the beginning of the meeting, saying that the town had 120 cases in the past 14 days. As of Feb. 11, Marblehead, which has a population of approximately 20,500, had 61 active COVID-19 cases. The highest number of cases was among 5-11-year-olds and adults between 40-69 years of age.
Petty said that the number of positive cases and the seven-day, weighted-average positivity rate in Massachusetts was currently at its lowest since November 2021. Citing from the Feb. 7 letter of Salem Hospital President Dr. David Roberts to the Salem Board of Health, Petty said that the hospital’s intensive-care-unit (ICU) capacity was back to baseline and there was a 5-percent drop in hospitalized COVID patients since early January.
“Given the current trends, we would not be opposed to pulling back in COVID-mitigation restrictions in the local community,” the letter stated.
Board of Health member Joanne G. Miller said that it was reasonable to rescind the masking measure based on the data and the letter.
“I feel very grateful that we are going in that direction of easing the surge,” said Miller.
Board member Helaine Hazlett made a motion to rescind the mask mandate based on the “glowing letter” and recent statistics; however, she said that 20 percent of all COVID-19 cases in the town have occurred during the recent omicron wave, starting Dec. 27.
“So we did a service to the community by having the mandate for those six weeks,” Hazlett said.
“I do stand by our mandate 100 percent. We 100 percent did the right thing to protect our community and I am glad we did it. I do think that it is time to move on,” said Board of Health Chair Todd Belf-Becker. “Overwhelmingly, I have gotten positive responses from the public, from the business owners, from the community saying thank you for doing this.”
Residents of Marblehead who were given a chance to speak before the vote on the motion thought otherwise. Resident Will Monks called the mask mandate “abuse of power” and complained about the board reinstating the masking mandate without talking to business owners.
“Many of us will never forgive or forget your actions on this matter,” said Monks. “Beginning in June, many of us will work together to begin a process of removing all three of you from your positions.”
Resident Tom McMahon shamed Hazlett for staying in Florida at the time of the meeting and not allowing residents of Marblehead to make their own adult decisions. Resident Kevin McKernan said that basing decisions on case data was giving a false sense of science; it was irrelevant to tracking the pandemic and was a “demonstration of incompetence.”
Nevertheless, Belf-Becker suggested adding a strong recommendation of wearing masks indoors to the motion since COVID-19 was not over. The Board of Health voted on the two-part motion unanimously.
The decision came into effect at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday.
Nahant
Nahant Town Administrator Antonio Barletta announced that the town’s indoor-mask mandate had been lifted immediately on Friday.
“I think that our residents, not just in Nahant but elsewhere too, welcome the rescinding of a mandate,” said Barletta. “Many of our residents are likely to continue to wear masks. A lot of our residents were wearing masks indoors prior to the mandate. I think eliminating the mandate will be welcomed, but I still think that our residents are going to use their best judgment on when and where they want to wear a mask.”
According to the town’s data, 55 percent of the Nahant population has received a booster shot. In the last two weeks, the town of approximately 3,500 people had only 25 reported cases.
The lifting of the mandate does not apply to Johnson Elementary School.
“The town will remain in communication with the school administration and School Committee about masking in the coming weeks,” read a statement from the town.
Peabody
The Peabody Board of Health voted unanimously to immediately remove the mask mandate in the city on Friday as well.
“I want to thank the board members, Sharon Cameron (Health Department director), and her team,” said Mayor Edward A. Bettencourt Jr. “This has certainly been a difficult grind for all of us and I really appreciate and am grateful for your assistance during these very difficult times.
“There’s been a great deal of information that’s been presented to us from doctors, from hospitals, from citizens, different reports, and very diverse opinions. We are all just trying to do the right thing and figure things out.”
Bettencourt noted in his statement to the board that Peabody has dealt with a surge in COVID cases and is feeling optimism for the first time in a long time in regards to the pandemic.
“The sun is shining and I feel like the world is getting back to some normalcy, and I wanted to speak today to ask that the mask mandate be lifted and to allow people the option of wearing masks going forward here in our city,” said Bettencourt.
The latest data from the Board of Health meeting on Friday shows that there were 425 cases in the last 14 days. Also, 73 percent of the city’s population of 54,500 people is fully vaccinated and 38 percent of the population has received their booster dose. Seventy-six percent of females are fully vaccinated while only 70 percent of males in the city are vaccinated, according to the city’s data.
“I do feel it’s appropriate to lift the mandate at this point,” said Cameron.
The board took comments from the public. A registered nurse and Peabody resident Kristen Liwanag supported the move to rescind the mask mandate. She also asked that masking be voluntary moving forward.
Another resident, Joe Riley supported the removal of a mask mandate as well.
“My theme on that would relate specifically to the disproportionate impact on different-sized businesses of a one-size-fits-all solution,” he said. “You think about going into restaurants and strapping on a mask as you walk through the door, walk 10 feet, get to a table, take the mask off, and then spend the next hour and a half or so maskless. It just never seemed to me like it made a whole lot of sense.”
