Martin lifts indoor mask mandate
Businesses can determine their own COVID masking rules
STAMFORD — Mayor David Martin lifted Stamford’s indoor mask mandate, effective immediately, after almost three months of compulsory face coverings throughout the city.
“That isn’t to say that everyone should immediately take their mask off,” Martin warned at his virtual COVID-19 update Tuesday night. But with the local caseload reaching its lowest point in weeks, the mayor moved to keep the promise he made back in September.
Though the city will continue to require masks at Stamford Government Center and individual businesses are entitled to their own mask requirements, patrons at most shops, eateries and indoor establishments can proceed mask-free.
Masking at schools, which is mandated and controlled by the state, will continue despite Martin’s decree.
According to the seven-day moving average of cases, Stamford is reporting 6.6 new cases per day. When adjusted for population, that means the city is seeing 4.9 new cases per 100,000 residents.
The daily caseload as of Oct. 25 is about one-fifth of what it was in early August, when the delta variant ravaged the region and cases peaked at 26 new infections per day. It was because of said spike that Martin re-implemented the masking rules for all private indoor businesses or places of employment. The mayor also required masking on city-owned outdoor properties, like public parks, a move that critics chastised ahead of major events like the Hey Stamford! Food Festival and Alive@Five.
Martin did not specify if the mandate lifting includes the rule on city-owned outdoor properties. However, both the indoor and the city-owned outdoor masking rules were part of the same mayoral executive order.
During his COVID update Tuesday, Martin linked both the masking rules and the city’s formidable vaccination rate to Stamford’s success in thwarting the virus. Just under 79 percent of city residents have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine, while only about 71 percent of residents statewide have gotten at least one jab.
But even though the mandatory masking rules are officially gone, the mayor lifted his executive order with cautious optimism and emphasized that COVID is an ever-changing virus. Just because the city, along with much of Fairfield County is in the clear now, he said, doesn’t mean that there won’t be a coronavirus resurgence later.
“There are experts, many medical experts, who are concerned that cases will continue to come back and rise again as we go into colder weather and we go more indoors,” he said. Especially among unvaccinated populations like young children, Martin urged extreme caution.
“I just have to say once again, practice the reasonable precautions,” he said. “Avoid large groups. Remember that children are not vaccinated.”