Salem Indoor Business Mask Mandate Set To Expire Saturday

SALEM, MA — The Salem indoor mask mandate for all businesses is set to expire as scheduled on Saturday.

The Salem Board of Health did not act to extend the order — which began on Aug. 23 — beyond the original Nov. 13 expiration date during its regular meeting on Tuesday. In order to extend the mandate now, the Board would have to call a special meeting by Friday night.

The Board unanimously approved the renewed mask order in August — just over two months after the previous year-long order was allowed to expire with the end of state coronavirus business restrictions on May 29 — as a way to help Salem mitigate any spread of the coronavirus during the busy Halloween tourist season. The Board later voted to adopt a negative-test order regardless of vaccination status for all events in indoor venues open to the public with 100 or more guests for the month of October.

That order expired as scheduled on Nov. 1.

"With masking, in general, it seems like the compliance was great," Board of Health Chair Dr. Jeremy Schiller said. "We had a very successful Halloween, obviously, this past month with the number of people coming to the city."

Schiller said that while he received a lot of communication about the renewed mask mandate in August, that has not been the case of late as the end date neared.

"I've had no emails about this expiration date," he said. "Considering the amount of emails I had pro and con when we enacted the mandate, it's kind of interesting that no one has really talked about it since our vote."

Health Agent David Greenbaum said there was a sudden rise in cases on Tuesday after it had held steady through the weekend with 46 cases over three days, followed by 32 new cases on Tuesday.

"Which was a little bit surprising," he said. "I think we anticipated there would be an increase in cases post-Halloween. So it's not totally a surprise. But it was a little more dramatic than I anticipated, to tell you the truth."

Greenbaum said the vast majority of the new cases are now among younger residents. Of the approximately 200 new cases since Oct. 25, 73 of them have come from those younger than 19, and 144 have come from those younger than 40.

Greenbaum said the hope is that the approval of the Pfizer vaccine for students 5 to 11 years old, along with what he called a "robust vaccination program" through Salem Public Schools, will help with the numbers among some of the city's youngest residents in the upcoming months.

Salem will also have another coronavirus testing option.

Curative, the company that ran the mass vaccination site at the Danvers DoubleTree Hotel through June and the Salem downtown rapid testing site at the Peabody-Essex Museum during October, will open a testing site at Riley Plaza.

Those will be the nasal swab PCR tests with a return time of one to two days.

This site will be in addition to the two state "Stop the Spread" sites at Salem High School and St. Peter's Church, which Gov. Charlie Baker has extended until at least Dec. 31.

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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.)