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Date: 1/11/2022
WESTERN MASS. – The numbers of COVID-19 infections due to the omicron variant has increased so sharply in the last week the Shutesbury Select Board closed Town Hall. The public health agent in Hatfield, also seeing a spike in positive tests, reinstituted a mask mandate for all public buildings.
According to Hatfield Town Administrator Marlene Michonski infections in Hatfield Town Hall did not trigger the new mandate. Caution prompted Public Health Agent Charles Kaniecki to put the mask requirement in place.
Michonski said the mask mandate applies to “all town employees and anybody from the public that would like to come into our town facilities. Most people will visit Town Hall, but it will also mean the schools, and the library too.”
The mask mandate, effective Jan. 10, applies to everyone 2 years of age and older. Mask use is not required for people with respiratory conditions, those who are eating, when hearing disabilities are at play, or where social distancing in an office setting is practiced.
Kaniecki read the national news focusing on the omicron variant’s high transmission rate, saw its impact in Hatfield, and felt the need to act. The mask mandate extends to the end of the month.
“That is to allow the Board of Health to have a normal meeting to decide what they want to do,” Kaniecki said. “This is an emergency action by the health agent, then the board has to decide whether they’ll modify or withdraw this, after the meeting.”
Kaniecki said the number of cases in Hatfield jumped from 10 to 43 in one week. “I’ve seen it bounce between five and 10,” Kaniecki said, but “no, I’ve never seen this before.”
Kaniecki said there’s 10 households with multiple cases. One resident is hospitalized. One death was reported.
“We’ve had people coming into Town Hall for quite some time, and most people wear a mask anyway,” Kaniecki said. “Employees are also happy to comply. People are concerned, looking out for their health, and for others, and don’t mind doing that.”
Hatfield’s mask mandate requires everyone, when in public buildings or businesses with more than two employees, to wear a mask or cloth face covering. Shutesbury’s official COVID-19 policy also requires those who test positive to isolate for 10 days. Those who have not been vaccinated must use personal sick days, rather than COVID-19 sick days, for isolation time, and must wear KN95 surgical masks when at work.
Shutesbury is also seeing a jump in COVID-19 cases. Town Administrator Rebecca Torres knew of eight new cases in her town. She was prompted to suggest closing Town Hall after two town employees tested positive last week.
“Talk about vulnerability,” Torres said. “We don’t have replacement staff who can come in (and) I’d like to have no more (infections). We don’t know when people come in the door, whether they’re masked or vaccinated.”
The new variant made deeper inroads into Shutesbury than Torres knew of. Fire Chief and Emergency Management Director Walter Tibbetts was aware of new infections and that more households were involved.
“Right now, I have two people who have tested positive, as of today,” Tibbetts said. The number of cases was changing so quickly the fire chief could not offer a figure for total infections. “There are 13 or 14 addresses, and some of them have multiple cases.”
The Shutesbury Select Board voted to close Town Hall to the general public for a two week period, to be revisited at the next board meeting. Torres thought that employees of the town would not object to the new adjustments for omicron’s impact, considering that it was a return to how business had been carried out for most of the pandemic, with meetings hosted outdoors and via Zoom. Meetings hosted at Town Hall were also kept to a smaller number of people.
“I think the staff would support this change,” she said. “I’m not trying to lock us down for the rest of the year.”
Kaniecki suggested the mask mandate for Hatfield partly to alert residents that the virus is still with us. He said, “People need to understand that this is not going to disappear in the near future.”