San Juan County Mask Order Still in Place, Despite CDC Recommendation

Contributed Photo/Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Officials Say Indoor Masking Protects Unvaccinated Children

From San Juan County

The Cen­ter for Dis­ease Con­trol has recent­ly released new guid­ance on wear­ing masks for ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed individuals.

That announce­ment has been fol­lowed by the governor’s deci­sion to more or less match the CDC guidance.

Ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed means two weeks past your final shot.

This guid­ance was released with no advance warn­ing or coor­di­na­tion with local or state gov­ern­ment. It will be a lit­tle while before the details are sorted. 

Inside

The CDC guid­ance specif­i­cal­ly men­tions that their approach does not replace any local or state regulations.

The San Juan Coun­ty Health Offi­cer order requir­ing cus­tomers to mask up inside busi­ness­es remains in place.

This applies whether you are vac­ci­nat­ed or not.

The rea­son­ing is sim­ple: many island busi­ness­es rely on teenage employ­ees who are only now able to receive their vaccine.

Pro­tect­ing them is vital, espe­cial­ly as we head into Memo­r­i­al Day week­end. The health offi­cer order will be revis­it­ed in mid-June once our island teenagers have had a chance to be ful­ly vaccinated.

Any unvac­ci­nat­ed chil­dren 12 or old­er should get their shots now. To reg­is­ter for the cur­rent clin­ics for ages 12 and up, vis­it www.sanjuanco.com/1737/COVID-Vaccine-Info.

There is no guar­an­tee that there will be oppor­tu­ni­ties to receive the Pfiz­er vac­cine through local vac­cine providers once the cur­rent­ly sched­uled clin­ics are over.

Our high­est risk group at this point is chil­dren 15 and under – none of whom are ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed at this time.

Those chil­dren and their par­ents need to be extra cau­tious about expo­sure to high-risk sit­u­a­tions (indoors, unmasked, espe­cial­ly with unvac­ci­nat­ed indi­vid­u­als). After 12- to 15-year-olds have been vac­ci­nat­ed, extra cau­tion will still be need­ed for chil­dren 11 and under.

If you are still mak­ing the choice to not be vac­ci­nat­ed or to not vac­ci­nate your chil­dren, know that loos­en­ing restric­tions on masks will increase your risk.

Out­side

The CDC guid­ance around out­door mask­ing is rea­son­able. Ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed indi­vid­u­als may go unmasked when outside.

In addi­tion, no one needs to wear a mask in uncrowd­ed areas when walk­ing down the street, on a dock, or through a park – whether they are vac­ci­nat­ed or not.

Those unvac­ci­nat­ed should keep their masks on when in crowd­ed out­door spaces with extend­ed expo­sure. Farm­ers’ mar­kets, walk­ing off a fer­ry, parades, or at an out­door con­cert are all exam­ples of out­door places where any­one unvac­ci­nat­ed must mask up.

Note that work require­ments may dif­fer, and as always will be deter­mined by Wash­ing­ton Labor & Indus­tries. In addi­tion, any facil­i­ty or prop­er­ty own­er may estab­lish their own rules requir­ing masks in out­door settings.

Schools, Hos­pi­tals, Nurs­ing Homes, Ferries

There are some sit­u­a­tions where state or fed­er­al law will con­tin­ue to require masks. This includes schools, health care facil­i­ties, long-term care facil­i­ties, and pub­lic tran­sit (includ­ing fer­ries and airplanes).

These state require­ments may expand in the days to come.

As is often the case when nation­al and state pol­i­tics impact local pol­i­cy, the job of mak­ing sense of it all falls square­ly on the shoul­ders of cit­i­zens and local gov­ern­ment. Please be patient.

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