Board of Health votes to lift Grafton’s mask mandate

The Grafton Board of Health voted Monday to lift the town’s mask mandate, effective February 18.

The move comes as COVID-19 cases continue to drop in the region after the holiday Omicron variant surge.

“We seem to be on the other side,”  Colleen Bolen of the Worcester Health Alliance told the board. “Cases are going down on a regular basis.”

The vote came as Dr. Michael Hirsh, Worcester’s medical director, and City Manager Edward M. Augustus Jr. were asking the city’s health board to rescind the mandate for all indoor private common spaces in the workplace and for indoor private spaces open to the public (the matter was still under debate as of this writing).

Grafton’s vote was unanimous, with Board of Health members continuing to urge residents to get vaccinated and obtain booster shots. While masks are not mandatory, residents are still urged to use them in crowded areas.

In Grafton, there were 44 new COVID-19 cases reported last week as compared to the holiday surge, which weekly saw more than 200 cases, Chair Karen Gwozdowski Gauvin said.

“Hopefully we never have another surge like that again,” she added.

Grafton schools remain under a mask mandate declared by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Eduction, which expires on February 28.

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