New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Officials hit streets to find mask violators
Sanitarians visit local business, seek continued cooperation
NEW HAVEN — Customers at Grab N’ Go Mart Smoke Stop on Chapel Street know what they need to do; if they don’t, Zael Cortes is there to help.
Cortes, a worker at the store, said most customers comply with the city’s newly reinstated mask mandate.
“Everybody is pretty on top of it,” he said.
If not, the store has single-use masks behind the register for customers to use.
The city in August mandated indoor mask wearing amid a surge in the more-infectious delta variant of COVID-19. On Tuesday afternoon, officials canvassed downtown businesses to ensure compliance with the rules.
New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said masking is important because of an
increase in COVID-19 cases — including among those who are fully vaccinated. He said the city has an average of 21 cases per 100,000 residents over the last 14 days, and 25 percent of the 59 patients currently hospitalized for COVID-19 are fully vaccinated.
“People who are fully vaccinated are getting COVID and getting hospitalized,” he said.
However, Elicker said the percentage of vaccinated residents is growing: as of Tuesday, 69.9 percent of eligible residents have received at least a first dose of a vaccine, he said.
“Cases have remained stable between 180 to 200 cases per week for the month of August,” he said. “For comparison, we saw 45 cases per week during the first week in July 2021. We’ve observed a sharp increase in new cases every week during
July and August.”
City Health Director Maritza Bond said there are three tiers to compliance when a business is found to be violating the mandate: first is a verbal warning, second is a written warning and third is the closure of the building until the business can develop a plan with city officials to reopen safely.
During the first two blocks of the canvass, sanitarians did not find any business out of compliance. When a clerk at a Chapel Street business was not wearing a mask when inspectors arrived, he went to his personal belongings behind the counter to get one as officials approached. That was just fine, according to senior sanitarian Shellie Longo.
“He was maintaining six feet of distance before we approached,” she said.
New Haven Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli said businesses around New Haven are happy to be reopened and welcoming business, so they are enthusiastic about complying with the mandate.
“This was a step we needed to take to reopen,” he said.
When inspectors walked into G Cafe on Orange Street, manager Tyler Demore said he was prepared for any customers who were looking for baked goods but arrived unmasked.
“Sometimes people say they forgot their mask. I say that I’ve got them covered,” he said, pointing at a box of masks behind the counter.
Elicker announced in early August that he was imposing the new mandate. It came a day after New Haven County moved into the most severe ranking for COVID-19 transmission established by the federal government.
Last week, the city said it had advised people, warned people and yet still had observed people and some establishments not enforcing the city’s mask mandate — and warned that health inspectors would come in and shut them down, if necessary.
“We want people to take the mask mandate seriously,” Elicker said last week, noting New Haven has seen a tenfold increase in COVID-19 cases over the past two months.