The Nantucket Board of Health engaged in a vigorous debate Thursday over the possibility of extending the island’s indoor mask order, one that was highlighted by Board of Health member Meri Lepore accusing Governor Charlie Baker of accepting a cash bribe to lift the state COVID-19 restrictions ahead of schedule.
On a split 3-2 vote, the board members ultimately decided to align with the state and lift the indoor mask order on the same date as the state: May 29th. The board followed the recommendation of Health Department Director Roberto Santamaria. “We’re winding down,” he told the Board of Health, citing near-zero COVID-19 cases over the past week and rising vaccination rates.
Governor Baker announced Monday that his administration is lifting all remain COVID-19 restrictions and the indoor mask mandate on May 29th, while rescinding the state of emergency on June 15 – two months earlier than expected. Local orders, including Nantucket’s indoor mask mandate, were implemented by the Board of Health with the power granted by Baker’s state of emergency declaration. With it being rescinded on June 15, the local indoor mask order would automatically lift.
But for Board of Health members Meri Lepore and Malcolm MacNab, the thought of abandoning the safety measure on the Governor’s accelerated timeline seemed unwise, and they urged their fellow board members to keep the indoor mask mandate in place through at least June 15.
“It feels like the Governor, someone offered him some money to make these decisions,” said Board of Health member Meri Lepore, NP. “I think all the businesses have been planning on what we’ve been told, now everything is going to open up the floodgates and let anything happen? It will be the floodgates and people will be dancing on bars and there’s not a lot we can do about it. My concern is things will go crazy because people have been sitting in their house for a year.”
Board member Malcolm MacNab agreed, and added that the vaccine passport concept is not feasible. It is nearly impossible to track the island’s vaccination rate and risk level given the arrival of the summer population, he said, so masks indoors seemed prudent.
“I think we have to be careful here,” MacNab said. “We’ve done a great job on the island, things are going good, but my experience is when you get over-confident and think things are going well, that’s exactly when things crash and don’t go well. We have to stay vigilant. This disease has not gone away yet.”
Santamaria told the board the island’s risk level was low at this time given the dropping test positivity rate and increasing vaccine distribution.
“We have to learn to live with this virus,” Santamaria said. “It’s here to stay and if we consistently roll back just because we’ve had a few cases, we’ll never move out of the covid shadow. I honestly think we should mirror the Governor’s orders and let the work we’re doing speak for itself.”
Lepore’s earlier motion to extend the island’s indoor mask mandate through June 15 was ultimately defeated 3-2, with chair Stephen Visco, James Cooper, and Melissa Murphy voting against it.
“I’m going to follow our epidemiologist – I’m going to side with Roberto,” Visco said. “I don’t think the Governor was bribed to do anything. He’s surround by public health officials who give guidance all the time. I don’t believe that for a second and no one should accuse him of that.”
If the board wanted to keep an indoor mask order beyond that date, Santamaria said, it would require them to do it through a formal process for new regulations, including giving notice, holding public hearings, and more.
