Danvers Drops Mask Order For Indoor Public Spaces

DANVERS, MA — One week after Danvers Board of Health members said they would consider dropping the town's mask order for indoor public spaces if coronavirus cases continued to decline, the Board quickly voted unanimously to do just that at a special meeting Thursday night.

Danvers became the latest North Shore community to drop a mask order that had been reimposed amid the COVID-19 omicron surge in December. Beverly, Salem and Swampscott dropped their respective orders in the last two weeks, while Marblehead and Peabody to consider lift orders in those communities on Friday.

The Board of Health said following 90 minutes of public comment last week that it would meet against Thursday and remove the order if the numbers continued their recent decline.

In the past month, the statewide positive test average fell from a high of 23.5 percent in early January to 3.8 percent in a rolling seven-day average as of Thursday.

"We have said from the beginning that we didn't want to keep the mandate on any hour later than we had to," Board of Health member Dutrochet Djoko said Thursday in introducing the motion to drop the mask order. "I'm really excited with these numbers and really pleased with the totality of what has been presented and the trend that we're following."

The Board's order does not affect masking in Danvers Public Schools and town buildings.

Djoko thanked the businesses for complying with the requirement for the seven weeks it was in back in effect and encouraged residents and visitors who feel more comfortable wearing masks inside town businesses to continue to do so.

The Board of Health was presented with a petition with more than 500 signatures asking it to repeal the mandate earlier last week, with Board of Health Chair Tom McLaughlin allowing that most advanced written comment to the Board prior to the last meeting felt the same.

The Board initially was not going to have public comment at its last meeting but relented. The overwhelming majority of those who then spoke for up to three minutes each advocated for the end of the mandate.

(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.)