Wauwatosa Drops Masks For Fully Vaccinated

WAUWATOSA, WI — The Common Council voted on Tuesday to pass a new ordinance to allow individuals fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to resume most public activities without wearing a mask.

According to the city website, created ordinance Section 8.20.025 would let individuals who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to resume normal indoor and outdoor activities without wearing a face covering or physically distancing. Exceptions to this would happen in health care settings and in other places required by law. The city will acknowledge the rights of businesses and workplaces in Wauwatosa to set their own mask rules independent of any ordinance.

The ordinance takes effect immediately after the Common Council voted and published it. There were still concerns over schoolchildren who can't get vaccinated and people with compromised immune systems.

"Schoolchildren still can't get vaccinated and are currently attending school," Alder Nancy Welch said at the meeting. "I was also reminded of people who are undergoing treatments or are immunocompromised. We want to make sure moving forward here that they're not going to be stigmatized or pressured for continuing to wear a mask when they have very good reasons for doing so."

Individual facilities like schools would still be able to make their own masking rules, City Attorney Alan Kesner said.

While transmission of the virus continues in the community and fully vaccinated people can't eliminate COVID-19 infection, the economic, social and mental health benefits outweigh the risk of infection, interim health officer Laura Stephens said in a statement Monday. COVID-19 cases in Wauwatosa have remained low for the past few months.

Stephens also said that emerging cases COVID-19 variants are increasing and that vaccination rates aren't high enough to provide herd immunity. In April, one of America's top epidemiologists warned of a fourth wave of a coronavirus variant among schoolchildren this summer.

The ordinance follows the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention changing their masking guidelines last week.

According to the CDC website, people who are fully vaccinated (two weeks after getting two doses of a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or one dose of a Johnson & Johnson vaccine) can resume activities prior to the pandemic without wearing a mask, unless local government rules say otherwise.