Stratford expands mask mandate to all public buildings
STRATFORD — Mayor Laura Hoydick ordered masks to be worn inside all public buildings Thursday as the town entered “red zone” status for COVID-19.
The order expands on the mayor’s mask mandate for Town Hall, which she issued last week after two employees tested positive for the coronavirus.
But it stops short of a townwide indoor mask mandate that would include private businesses, which some Connecticut municipalities have adopted and Town Council member Kaitlyn Shake, D-2, has called on the mayor to impose.
The mayor said businesses that wish to require masks on their premises may do so.
The town has a case rate of 19.3 per 100,000, according to data from the state Department of Public Health, jumping from 13.4 last week and pushing the town well over the “red zone” threshold of 15 cases per 100,000 and the second highest in Fairfield County.
According to DPH, 62.86 percent of the town’s population has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine — the third lowest rate in Fairfield County.
“As Stratford and our bordering communities continue to have increasing case rates and are now classified in the red zone, we are taking this added precaution,” Hoydick said in a prepared statement Thursday announcing the mandate, which will go into effect Friday.
She urged residents to get vaccinated.
“We continue to have open vaccine clinics in Stratford, and residents who have been hesitant to get the vaccine should take the recent increases in spread as an indication of how important it is to be vaccinated,” she said.
Shake, a registered nurse, reiterated her call for a townwide indoor mask mandate on her Facebook page Wednesday and shared information about a vaccination clinic from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday during a backto-school event at Sterling House Community Center.
The clinic info, re-posted from the town Health Department’s Facebook page, was shared by the mayor and other Town Council members hours later.
“Saving lives, preventing illness and protecting our children with easy public health mitigation actions shouldn’t be a hard decision for those in positions of authority and oversight,” Shake said in her post. “With the ongoing rapid increase in cases of COVID-19 in the state over the last 14 days due to the spread of the delta variant, the Connecticut Department of Public Health strongly recommends that ALL CONNECTICUT residents over age two years, whether vaccinated or unvaccinated, return to wearing masks when in indoor public spaces.”
Shake said Thursday she never got a response from the mayor to an email she sent asking what percentage of town employees had been vaccinated. Hearst Connecticut Media asked for the information Aug. 13. Hoydick’s chief of staff said he requested the info from the human resources department.
Immacula Cann, the Democratic nominee for mayor and also a registered nurse, agreed with Shake’s request for an expanded mask mandate.
“I fully support 2nd District Councilwoman Shake and call for action from the mayor,” Cann wrote in a Facebook post of her own.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 4,838 confirmed cases and 722 probable cases in town, for a total of 5,560, and 156 deaths from COVID-19, according to the state.