The West Springfield Board of Health voted Wednesday night to end a mask mandate established in the city in advance of The Big E.
The indoor mandate began on Sept. 17, the day The Big E opened, in anticipation of large crowds arriving in the city from around Massachusetts and New England. Attendees did not have to wear a mask outdoors, but were required to have one on when stepping into a building at the Eastern States Exposition.
In a letter to the board on Tuesday, Mayor William Reichelt requested that the mandate be updated with the fair now passed.
“I understood the board’s rationale for implementing the mask mandate in advance of the Big E,” Reichelt said in his letter to Director of Public Health Jeanne Galloway. “Now that the fair is over and the COVID data is improving, I believe that it is an appropriate time to reconsider the mask mandate for West Springfield.”
Despite seeing nearly 1.5 million guests over 17 days, only 100 COVID cases have been connected to The Big E, Galloway said.
Cases are further dropping in West Springfield and neighboring towns and cities. As of Oct. 14, West Springfield was down to 18 new COVID cases a day per capita, a fraction of the rate of spread in similarly sized Massachusetts communities. Springfield’s cases have also dropped after weeks of high spread.
Going forward, West Springfield businesses will no longer need to require masks indoors, but those in schools must still wear them, per state guidelines. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education requires masks in schools under 80% vaccinated.
“Our vaccination rates is 50% at the high school and the middle school is about 30%,” Reichelt said. “So if we are trying to get to that 80 percent range, we still have some work to do there.”
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