Don’t pack away your masks just yet.
A week after Gov. Eric Holcomb dropped the state’s mask mandate to a mask advisory, there are still many buildings where it’s still required to wear them. Those include government buildings, such as schools and government offices, and many private businesses around the county.
In addition, two area counties — Monroe (Bloomington) and Marion (Indianapolis) — have opted to keep mask mandates in public places, including at stores and restaurants. Retail chains found in neighboring counties, such as Walmart, Sam’s Club, Target, Home Depot, Aldi, Kroger, Lowe’s, Menards, CVS, Walgreens and Best Buy, also still have mask mandates nationwide, the Indianapolis Star reported last week.
The Brown County Health Department, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Holcomb are still encouraging everyone to follow safety measures such as mask-wearing.
“It’s definitely not over,” said Corey Frost, public health preparedness coordinator for Brown County.
Nationwide, the seven-day average of new cases last week was 64,152 — around the level we were seeing back in July. That’s far below the peak of 249,696 per day in early January, but about double the nationwide average from a year ago, according to the CDC.
“It is HIGHLY encouraged that the public continue to follow safety measures and guidance of face coverings, physical distancing of six feet, and hand hygiene,” said a press release from Brown County’s emergency offices.
“… We will continue to monitor the positivity rate for Brown County and adjust if needed.”
Brown County government offices, most of which have been closed to the public since March 24, 2020, have begun allowing visitors back in, masked, to ask questions directly to county employees in their offices. That policy will continue until at least May 7.
“We closed in increments, so we’ll open in increments,” county commissioner Diana Biddle explained at last week’s commissioners meeting. “It will be a little easier right now for you to conduct business in individual offices if you choose to do so.
“… We’ll take 30 days; if there is no increase in the rate of infection and we stay in the blue level, and there is no rollback mandate from the state, then, hopefully, in May, we can relax things a little bit more. But we’ll just take it a couple of weeks at a time.”
Nashville Town Hall is not reopening to the public just yet, but will attempt to have a blended in-person/Zoom meeting for the April town council meeting on the 15th, council President Jane Gore said. Only the Town Hall meeting room will be open at that time, with distanced seating and masks required.
The Brown County YMCA is taking a stepped approach, requiring masks of staff and patrons through May 15 and then reevaluating. If downward trends continue, the mask requirement for patrons would drop to an advisory for the rest of May but stay a requirement for staff, then loosen for everyone in June. The timeline allows everyone currently eligible for a vaccine to get one if they choose, Executive Director Kim Robinson explained.
How our numbers look
As of April 7, Brown County was still in “blue” on the state’s color-coded map of virus spread, which is the lowest level of risk. It was the sixth consecutive week we’ve stayed on blue. The Indiana State Department of Health updates the map at coronavirus.in.gov each Wednesday at noon.
In the past seven days — April 6 to 12 — Brown County picked up 17 new cases and zero new COVID deaths. For the past two weeks, we’d been sitting at about five new cases per week.
Other area counties have been shifting to a higher risk level as more infections are detected through COVID testing. As of April 7, Brown County was again a blue island surrounded by yellow and orange counties, like we were back in early November before infections started spiking into 30-, 50-, 60-plus per week here.
Frost said he wouldn’t be surprised if Brown County goes yellow soon, given the numbers of new cases and test positivity rates that we’ve been seeing lately. If that happens, it is likely that the local health department will issue updated guidance, he said.
Vaccination progress
Anyone age 16 and older is now eligible to receive a free COVID-19 vaccine. Nearly 650 vaccine clinics are offered throughout the state.
The Brown County Music Center administered just under 700 shots last week to residents of Brown County and elsewhere. It offers the two-shot Moderna vaccine only, with doses given about 28 days apart.
As of Friday, appointments were still available for this week, one or two a day, said environmental health specialist Jennifer Heller with the Brown County Health Department.
Last week they saw numerous appointment cancellations, but Heller said she thought that was because people had been able to get in elsewhere.
Still, no vaccine dose has been wasted, she said.
When a vacancy arises, staff call someone from the health department’s waiting list. Now that all adults are eligible to make an appointment somewhere in the state, those may be people who are trying to get vaccinated sooner rather than later, or at a site closer to where they live.
On Thursday, everyone on the waiting list was called, Heller said.
Anyone wishing to get on the waiting list can call the health department at 812-988-2255 or the vaccine clinic directly at 812-320-1124.
To make a vaccine appointment, visit ourshot.in.gov or call 211.
As of April 9, 4,775 Brown County residents had received at least one shot of a two-dose vaccine by Pfizer or Moderna or the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine. That meant about 31 percent of the county’s population was at least partially vaccinated.
To achieve “herd immunity” — enough people either being vaccinated against a disease, or getting it and developing antibodies, to make its continued spread unlikely — the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy says that a 70 percent immunity rate is needed, though some experts have said it is higher.
It’s still unknown how much immunity a person who has recovered from COVID has and for how long, as cases have been documented of people contracting it more than once.
If all Brown County’s known COVID-19 cases were counted in the “immunity” category along with people who have been at least partially vaccinated, we’d be at closer to 37 percent immunity.
Heller said some people have asked questions about vaccine safety but they’ve gone ahead and booked appointments anyway.
So far, medical staff has not had to tend to anyone sitting in the 15-minute observation area after their shot, she said.
“We want people to keep getting vaccinated, Heller said, “even though they’re outside more and we don’t have the masks as a mandate.
“They’re thinking, ‘Everything’s open and we’re good to go and we can do whatever we want to do.’”
Still in it or so over it?
We polled members of the Brown County Businesses Facebook page last week about what their policies were now that the governor’s mask mandate had ended.
Of 16 respondents, 14 businesses were keeping some combination of measures meant to protect customers and staff from illness. Five were requiring masks, seven were advising customers to wear them but not requiring them, four were limiting the number of people in their building at one time, and two were still doing extra cleaning and sanitizing.
The Toy Chest is among the businesses that are continuing the measures they’ve been taking for months. “Since we’re a kid-friendly store and children don’t have any options for protection outside of masks, nothing will change at The Toy Chest,” owner Hilary Key said.
One commenter on the Brown County Businesses page wrote that he would tell anyone wearing a mask to leave his store. He did not respond to repeated questions about which store was his, and Nashville Town Hall did not have a business license on file under his name.
The Nashville Town Council passed a mask ordinance in July which does not require people to wear masks everywhere, but does require people to comply with posted rules where they exist.
The that ordinance is still in effect, and the town will continue to following the governor’s advice, Gore said.
However, it is up to business owners and employees to enforce their rules. About a week after the town passed its “mask required where posted” ordinance in July, the governor required masks across the state. Now, businesses don’t have that state mandate to fall back on if they encounter resistance from customers.
Brown County IGA in Nashville and the Dollar General in Bean Blossom are among the businesses that would like customers to continue wearing masks, as their employees will, but won’t enforce it. That is CVS’s corporate policy nationwide as well.
Nashville Family Dollar referred a reporter to the corporate policy, which says that masks are required of customers and staff in accordance with CDC guidelines. A sign on the local store’s door asks people to “please be respectful.”
If a customer refuses to comply with posted signs, and then refuses to leave the store, the police can be called to trespass that person, council members explained last last year. If the business is in town, the Nashville Police are the ones to call.
“We just ask the public to do what is asked of you if you want to visit those places and they want you to wear a mask,” Biddle told the audience logged into the county commissioners meeting last week.
“It’s up to business owners,” commissioners President Jerry Pittman added. “If they want to make a rule you have to wear three shirts to enter their business, that is their prerogative.”
