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Mayor Elicker: city sticking with “status quo” approach to mask guidelines, for now.
Come Wednesday, fully vaccinated people will be able to leave their masks in their pockets — even when going indoors — in most settings across the state.
City Hall, meanwhile, is sticking with a “status quo” approach to local mask-wearing recommendations, as city officials push to get more New Haveners inoculated against Covid-19.
City, state, and Yale New Haven Health System (YNHHS) officials all weighed in Monday on the quickly-changing guidelines around who needs to wear a face mask, and where, at this stage of the pandemic.
The responses were prompted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) announcement last week that fully vaccinated individuals do not have to wear face masks in virtually all outdoor and indoor settings.
In the intervening few days, elected officials and public health experts across the country have expressed a feeling of whiplash at the suddenness of the CDC’s reversal. Previously, the CDC had encouraged even vaccinated people to continue covering their faces indoors in order to promote a broader culture of mask wearing among a still largely-unvaccinated population.
On Monday afternoon, Gov. Ned Lamont embraced the CDC’s looser recommendations in a new set of statewide mask guidelines.
Those Connecticut guidelines state that, starting Wednesday, no one will be required to wear a mask while outdoors.
Also on Wednesday, fully vaccinated people will not be required to wear masks indoors except in certain settings such as healthcare facilities, facilities housing vulnerable populations, on public and private transit, in correctional facilities, schools, and childcare settings.
Unvaccinated people, meanwhile, must continue to wear masks in virtually all indoor settings.
And business, state and local government offices may still choose to impose stricter mask-wearing requirements.
At a Monday afternoon press conference at City Hall — held before Lamont’s announcement — Mayor Justin Elicker, city Health Director Maritza Bond, and city Community Services Administrator (CSA) Mehul Dalal (pictured) said that the city will be taking a more “conservative” approach to its mask guidelines for now.
“I think that the CDC’s announcement took the entire country by surprise,” Elicker said. He said his administration is going to stick with “status quo” recommendations around mask-wearing.
That is, even if you are fully vaccinated, you should continue to wear your mask in virtually all indoor settings.
“This frankly could change pretty quickly depending on what the state does,” Elicker said.
The city has required indoor mask wearing at grocery stores, pharmacies, and other local retail outlets since last April.
According to the state Department of Public Health, 56,687 New Haven residents (or 43 percent of the population) have received an initial vaccine dose. And 45,259 New Haveners, or 34.7 percent of the population, are fully vaccinated.
“We do hopefully want to increase our level [of vaccinations] before we liberalize some of the recommendations,” Dalal said.
YNHHS: “We Need To Get Everyone Vaccinated. Period”
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At a separate, online press briefing, YNHHS Chief Clinical Office Tom Balcezak (pictured) noted how difficult it is for public health officials to figure out the best balance and timing for issuing guidelines around such protective measures as mask wearing.
“We are struggling as a country and as a world to try to get the science right and to try to get the timing right,” he said. “I think that this is a very difficult thing to do, and the decisions that we need to make are hard decisions.”
He said that one motivation behind the CDC’s changed guidance was likely to “hang a carrot out there for those who are not yet vaccinated, by stating that, if everyone is fully vaccinated, then they can go ahead and remove their masks and let some way of normalcy return to their lives.”
Was this a premature recommendation? “Only time is going to be able to tell.”
Balcezak said he’s confident that “transmission outdoors is exceedingly rare,” and that more and more people can and will be taking off their masks when moving around casually outdoors.
As for what to do when you’re indoors, he said, “I think there’s a lot of nuance” in the CDC’s new guidelines. “As long as we maintain good sense and practical measures in reducing transmission, we may be OK.”
“My personal hope is that people who are not yet vaccinated are looking at this as a reason to go get vaccinated,” he continued.
And when asked in which contexts unvaccinated people should feel comfortable taking off their masks, Balcezak rejected the framing of that question.
“We need to get everyone vaccinated. Period,” he said. “I think that should be our overarching and overwhelming priority.”
Balcezak and YNHH CEO Marna Borgstrom said that YNHHS currently has only 64 Covid-positive in-patients in its hospital beds systemwide, include 43 at Yale New Haven Hospital in New Haven.
Balcezak said that the regional hospital system had delivered nearly 400,000 vaccine doses, and has fully vaccinated 175,000 people.
And he said that the demand for vaccinations systemwide has dropped dramatically in recent weeks.
In December, he said, YNHSS administered 14,013 doses.
In January, they administered 39,413 doses.
In February, 58,583 doses.
In March, 94,049 doses.
In April, 139,914 doses.
And through May 12, 45,595 doses.