With Few Statewide Rules, Delta Response Varies Widely Across MA

MASSACHUSETTS — School districts and local boards of health will continue to be largely on their own when it comes to determining whether to enact mask and vaccine mandates for their own communities amid the rise of the coronavirus delta variant.

Gov. Charlie Baker reiterated this week that there is unlikely to be any further statewide guidance or requirements beyond those released on July 30 when it comes to indoor masking for businesses or schools when the new academic year begins within the next three weeks.

"I think the communities are doing exactly what we hoped and anticipated that they would do, which is making the decision that makes the most sense for them," Baker said at a Thursday news conference.

That is making things potentially much different from town to town throughout the state.

This week, Salem adopted an indoor mask mandate for all businesses through the busy Halloween tourist season in that city, while Wellfleet is also requiring masks indoors and crowded outdoor spaces — as well as once again promoting social distancing — through at least Labor Day.

Those visiting Belmont also had to mask up inside businesses starting on Monday, while Nantucket started requiring masks effectively immediately last week, but held off on bringing back capacity restrictions inside bars and restaurants at an emergency board of health meeting on Thursday night.

Lexington also instituted an indoor mask mandate for all businesses to begin Aug. 18 and run through at least Nov. 5.

Brookline, Arlington, Danvers, Framingham, Medford, Melrose, Swampscott, Wakefield, Wayland and Worcester are among the other communities across the state that have reinstated some type of indoor mask guidance or mandate for municipal buildings, civic gatherings or schools.

Provincetown enacted an indoor mask requirement shortly after the Fourth of July weekend outbreak that caused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to revise its indoor mask recommendations for vaccinated people in areas of substantial or high transmission across the country.

Baker has leaned on the state's high vaccination rate — second-highest in the country behind Vermont – and low virus hospitalization numbers — also second in the country — as reasons why additional statewide restrictions are not necessary at this time despite several weeks of slowly rising positive case numbers.

"The vaccines work," Baker said. "I can't emphasize this point enough. I think in some respects Provincetown was as big a test as you can possibly put a vaccine through. A significant amount of the people there were vaccinated. It was an enormous crowd on a three-day rainy weekend in Provincetown where everybody talked about the fact that it was a lot of close quarters in restaurants and bars and households.

"And, yet, in a cluster with more than 1,000 people (testing positive for the coronavirus) only seven people were hospitalized and one person died. And the person who died had a lot of perplexities."

Where Baker has received more pushback on the need for greater statewide guidance is when it comes to schools. The CDC has recommended indoor masking for all students, faculty and staff regardless of vaccination status in kindergarten through 12th grade, but the state Department for Elementary and Secondary Education only went as far as strongly recommending masks for those in sixth grade or younger, since they are not yet eligible to be vaccinated, and saying masks should be optional for vaccinated students in grades 7 through 12, as well as vaccinated teachers and staff.

"We have dozens and dozens of vaccination clinics set up in conjunction with school departments, and with cities and towns, between now and the time school starts," Baker said. "I fully expect you’ll have communities that will be well north of 80 percent of kids in the grade 7-12 grade level who will be vaccinated by the time school begins.

"We expect and anticipate at some point this fall — based on what the feds have been saying — there will be an (Emergency Use Authorization} issued for vaccines for kids in that (age 5-11) category. At that point in time, we will do everything we can to help kids, and school districts and families, who want to get vaccinated to get vaccinated."

Baker added that extensive surveillance testing is also available for schools to detect asymptomatic cases and quickly identify any virus clusters.

"I think you put all those things together and we are perfectly positioned to make sure that kids and adults will be safe when we go back to school," Baker said. "And we fully expect everybody to be in person (for in-classroom learning)."

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)