The Vestry has decided that starting on Sunday, September 11th, our 9:30 service and its activities will become mask optional. This change is due to now universal vaccine eligibility. Everyone 6 months and older who wants to be vaccinated can finally access the vaccine. The last group to become eligible was the under-5s, who could get their first dose in mid-June. Depending on how quickly families were able to get that first dose and which vaccine they received, children in this age group started to become fully vaccinated in early August, with many more coming up to full vaccination throughout August and September. Waiting until September, which also corresponds with the start of school where children are also in mask optional settings, should allow most to be fully vaccinated by this point or they will be soon.
We remain committed to keeping you safe in worship through layers of protection. Vaccination is the most effective layer to keeping people safe from severe illness, but there are other valuable ways to keep safe. Ventilation is one critical layer of safety. During worship services in the church, the ventilation system is constantly operating to take out old air and bring in new air. In Sunday School classrooms and in the Guild Room, we have air purifiers (and weather permitting, windows can be opened). We are also looking to improve our outdoor space so that we can have better opportunities to meet outside, the best ventilation of all.
Keeping distance is another good layer. We will continue to have pews in the chapel taped off if you would like a space with more physical distance from others. The 11am service is livestreamed for those that need to stay home due to their own vulnerability or because they are feeling sick and need to protect others.
Masking – especially high-quality masks like N-95, KN-95, and KF-94 masks – are another effective layer for individual and communal protection. We have noticed at our current mask optional services that the number of people wearing masks has ebbed and flowed with the prevalence of Covid and hospitalization in our community. More people have been wearing them when the CDC says that we are in high risk and fewer wear them when we are in medium and even fewer when we are in low risk. This is a helpful response that keeps individuals and the community safe.
Even as we move to making all of our services mask optional, we invite individual ministries and groups to consider who is attending and the layers of protection in the environment in which they are meeting. Individual groups or ministries might still want to require masks for their gatherings and they are welcome to do so. Please check with your group leaders about their masking policies.
As has been the case since March 2020, this pandemic is a dynamic situation and we will continue to monitor the situation as this virus evolves and as scientists continue to learn more about it.
