The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Town not yet mandating masks
NEW MILFORD — While neighboring towns this week began requiring masks indoors regardless of vaccination status, New Milford has stopped short of enacting its own mandate.
“Currently, we’re on the same holding pattern as we have been, monitoring the numbers a couple times a day,” Mayor Pete Bass said.
Bass and New Milford Health Director Lisa Morrissey meet daily to discuss numbers and strategize. They’re following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance and recommending people wear masks indoors, Bass said. Masks are required in municipal buildings.
Beginning two weeks ago, Gov. Ned Lamont allowed cities and towns to decide whether to reinstate mask mandates for vaccinated
and unvaccinated residents.
Last Friday, leaders from five Fairfield County towns — Bethel, Brookfield, New Fairfield, Redding and Ridgefield — met virtually to make a decision on an indoor mask mandate, ultimately deciding to reinstate it.
Their decision followed Danbury’s Aug. 11 announcement to mandate indoor masks. At the time, Mayor Joe Cavo asked nearby towns to follow suit.
The five towns’ decision took effect this past Monday, while Danbury’s began Sunday.
Bass said a big factor in the town’s masking policy hinges on the way the virus has been spreading, as well as area hospitalization numbers, which were in the single digits as of the mayor’s Wednesday Facebook update. Another factor is the positivity rate in New Milford and surrounding areas.
Morrissey said the current infections they’re seeing are mostly related to vacations and travel outside of the state, rather than local spread.
However, she added if they start “finding that people are getting COVID-19 where they work and where they live, that changes the conversation.”
A mask mandate would require some type of enforcement to be different from the current “recommendation,” Morrissey said. She has spoken with Bass and health officials in nearby towns about these challenges.
“Part of [the mask mandate] conversation will be, ‘Well, what type of enforcement are we proposing along with that mandate?’” she said.
Feedback from residents has varied.
“You have a mix of people who don’t want to wear any masks, and people who do want to wear masks,” Bass said. “The most important thing we can do is get vaccinated.”
The town continues its weekly vaccination clinics on Wednesdays at the John Pettibone Community Center.
Even though the town is in state’s “orange zone” — the second highest level for infection rate — the majority of its neighboring towns are in the “gray zone,” which is the lowest level of infection rate. The exceptions are New Fairfield and Brookfield, which are also in the “orange zone.”
The color scale system, put in place last fall, marks the areas that have high rates of COVID-19 infection using four colors: red, orange, yellow and gray.
The “red zone” means the area averages 15 or more cases per 100,000 residents per day over a two-week period, while the “gray zone” means the area has an average of less than five cases per 100,000 residents each day for two weeks.
“Brookfield and some of the surrounding towns, they’re trending pretty high and that is concerning,” Morrissey said. “We’re trending up, as well.”
As of Thursday, New Milford’s two-week case rate increased from 10.7 per 100,000 residents to 11.7, with a total of 44 cases over the past two weeks. Brookfield’s case rate is now 13.9.
Since starting its local drive-thru COVID-19 testing site at the John Pettibone Community Center, the town has seen at least one person test positive at every clinic, according to Morrissey.
New Milford may see an increase in infection numbers in coming weeks when school starts. That’s because of the social activities that accompany the start of school, not because of spread in the buildings, Morrissey said.
Town Councilwoman Mary Jane Lundgren said that based on state and national trends, she’s expecting an indoor mask mandate in the coming weeks.
“Personally, I think we’re getting to that point where we’re going to have to do it again,” she said. “I have a feeling within the next week or two things are going to change.”