Universal Mask Mandate To Be Lifted In West Hartford

WEST HARTFORD, CT — West Hartford Mayor Shari Cantor said Tuesday that she is terminating the local emergency declaration related to the coronavirus pandemic and that the town's universal mask mandate will be repealed.

The mask mandate will be lifted at 12:01 a.m. Friday, she said.

Over the past four weeks, virus cases in West Hartford and the region have been on the decline, she said. West Hartford is currently categorized in the yellow zone in terms of transmission, the second lowest risk category set by the state Department of Public Health.

West Hartford continues to have one of the "highest vaccination rates in the country," she said.

"We have our residents to thank for the drop in the infection rate by complying with the mask mandate when it was important to do so, getting vaccinated, and practicing personal safety protocols," Cantor said.

West Hartford's universal indoor mask mandate went into effect on Aug. 20, 2021, when virus cases for every county in Connecticut were in the red zone, defined by the CDC as high-level community transmission with 100-plus cases per 100,000 per county.

The case rate in West Hartford for the last reporting period, which ended Oct. 9, 2021, was down to 7.8 per 100,000, classified as low-level community transmission, defined by the Connecticut Department of Public Health as 5 to 9 cases per 100,000.

"We have been carefully monitoring the transmission rates for West Hartford and our neighboring towns, and we have achieved the benchmarks which allow us to safely lift the mask mandate," West Hartford Town Manager Matt Hart said. "This is very good news."

A major factor in the decline in infections is West Hartford’s high vaccination rate, Cantor said. West Hartford public schools have a 90 percent vaccination rate among staff and students in grades 7 through 12, Cantor said.

As a whole, 87.2 percent of West Hartford residents ages 12 and older are fully vaccinated, she added.

Cantor declared a local state of emergency on March 15, 2020, shortly after the virus began spreading in the state. Hart said that the mask mandate will come back if conditions warrant.

"It is incredible to think of how far we have come since the darkest days of the pandemic in 2020," Cantor said. "When we first declared an emergency last year, there was no vaccine against COVID-19 and there were very few effective treatments. Today, there are highly effective vaccines available to any adult who wants one, and new therapies continue to be developed."

The town will not require masks in municipal buildings with the exception of the public libraries, which serve a population that is not yet eligible for the vaccine.

Individual businesses may choose to have their own policies that require customers to wear a mask in order to receive service.