Moscow Mayor Bill Lambert said lifting mask restrictions now would be “irresponsible.” Moscow City Council met Monday night to discuss updates to the protocols used to determine whether mandates are necessary. The council unanimously approved the updates.
The council approved these metrics, after talking with a panel of officials from the Public Health – Idaho North Central District, University of Idaho, Latah County Commission, Moscow School District and Gritman Medical Center.
City Supervisor Gary Riedner presented the proposal via Zoom, unable to attend in-person after testing positive for COVID-19. Between short bouts of coughing, Riedner said the new protocols utilize regional data tools from PH-INCD. Once an area is considered “minimal risk,” mask mandates can be up for termination, according to Riedner.
“Input from hospital partners (in the proposal) was huge,” Riedner said.
Dr. John Brown, the chief medical officer at Gritman Medical Center, said mask mandates affect Gritman’s ability to staff the hospital.
“If everybody is getting sick in our community because people aren’t masking, people will not get the care they need,” Brown said.
Dr. Nicholas Garrett, an ER physician, said hospital capacity is limited by available staff members, hospital beds and the capacities of other medical centers, where patients can be referred to. The ability to get patients to other medical centers is “one of the single biggest stressors on the system right now,” Garrett said.
Carol Moehrle, PH-INCD director, said the department thinks mask mandates are critical for COVID-19 patients and for members of the general public, which need medical attention for other ailments as well.
“These masks are keeping people out of the hospital,” Moehrle said. “If we’re not wearing masks and the hospital is full of COVID-19 people, the rest of us that need that hospital… won’t have a place to go.”
Outside the council chambers, several people protested the mandates. One protestor, Kelli Zakariasen, said she had followed the council’s mandates from the beginning and was now happy to see the metrics which power the city’s decisions.
“It is not the place of the city council to make a medical decision,” Zakariasen said. “Masks are a class two medical device… and putting one on is a medical procedure. There are no long-term safety studies on wearing masks perpetually, so I think people, knowing that, should have the ability to choose (whether they wear one).”
Once the pandemic is no longer considered a threat, as determined by the protocols updated at this meeting, mask mandates may be removed. However, “(masks) are one of the last things we should remove from our mandates,” Garrett said.
Cody Roberts can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @CodyRobReports.