Right now, there are two main organizations in Appleton that have universal masking requirements within their facilities—the City of Appleton and the Appleton Area School District. As previously posted, AASD has declined to state what needs to happen before their masking requirement will be lifted.
I did reach out to Interim Health Officer Sonja Jensen and asked her what needed to happen for the city to stop implementing Covid mandates and instead just provide education and recommendations to the public. At what point will mandates stop?
She responded:
As a City, we are providing education and recommendations. Businesses, schools and individual citizens in their own homes can make their own decisions on vaccinations and masking. The only recent policy change we made was for our City of Appleton employees and the public who enter City of Appleton buildings. This was a decision made by the Mayor and supported by our health department. This was based on the recommendations that were put forth by the CDC and supported also by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. The link to the CDC guidance is here: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated-guidance.html.
The decision to implement the masking policy for employees and the public in City of Appleton buildings was based mainly on our community transmission rate, which was substantial at the time of the initiation of the policy and is now in the high category. This is outlined in the guidance in the link above. We also monitor the vaccination rates in the community, hospitalizations, and do our own internal monitoring of City of Appleton employees to assist us in our decision making.
As far as the future goes, we will continue to assess the situation and adapt our policies and guidance as needed to keep our employees and the community as safe and informed as possible.”
I then asked her “Given that all of those employees are going to be going out into a community that is widely not masking and a majority of those employees will most likely not be masking outside of city property, what is the city trying to accomplish by requiring masking on city property? Is it really going to reduce transmission rates by a measurable amount?” I also asked what metrics the city was using to determine the success of required masking on city property.
While it didn’t sound like the city is tracking cases to determine whether masking is having an effect, she did answer, “Science does show that masking does reduce transmission, so, that would be the goal. We are trying to protect those in the workplace, and in the community as a whole, who are immunocompromised or unable to get vaccinated. As you mention, we cannot control (nor should we) what employees do while not at work for the city, but would hope that most would consider masking in other public settings as well. We provide information and education to our employees so that they understand the rationales behind the policy.”
Although there is no timeframe for or metrics that would trigger the ending of mandatory masking on city property, the city is not, at this time, considering expanding the mandate that is currently in force. I asked Interim Health Officer Jensen, “Has there been any discussion about implementing further Covid response measures either only on city property or including the city at large?”
She responded, “At this time, there have not been any discussions related to any implementation of mandates other than our current policy for city employees and city facilities. Our aim is to provide education and information to the community.”
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