Northampton Board of Health decides against vaccine mandate

Jan. 18, 2022 | Ryan Feyre
rfeyre@thereminder.com

Dr. Joanne Levin, chair of the Board of Health, discusses vaccine efficacy during the board’s recent discussion on a proposed vaccine mandate.
Screen capture courtesy of Northampton Open Media

NORTHAMPTON – During a Jan. 13 meeting, the Northampton Board of Health decided to hold off on making any motion regarding a vaccine mandate throughout town.

“I think a mandate like this would be worth the effort if checking the vaccine status would screen out those who could spread COVID[-19],” said Board of Health member Suzanne Smith. “Unfortunately, the evidence to support this is lacking.”

Although the vaccine minimizes hospitalization and deaths, the board agreed that there is very little evidence at the moment to suggest that the vaccine greatly prevents transmission, and many of the breakout cases they are seeing are through asymptomatic people.

“I think requiring vaccinations to enter these specific establishments that we’re talking about is unlikely to have the impact on reducing transmission that we would hope,” said Smith. “It would be a further burden on a battered sector on our economic base that is already struggling with mask regulations.”

The board said that they will continue to encourage people to get vaccinated, as that is the best preventative measure in reducing hospitalizations and death.

Despite the lack of a mandate, the board agreed that they would support any business in the city that decides to implement their own vaccine requirement and will develop some public health guidelines to help businesses that may not know what to do in a situation like this.

Northampton Director of Public Health Merridith O’Leary noted that there is no data showing that transmission is caused by large gatherings in restaurants and bars. Much of the transmission, rather, occurs within households and the weeks after the holiday season was a direct reflection of that, where Northampton experienced 23 percent of all their COVID-19 cases between Jan. 1 and 13. As of press time, the city is seeing an average of 56 cases per day.

“I would hate for us to make a policy that would have such a huge negative unintended consequence without this very important data point,” said O’Leary, referring to the transmission rate caused by restaurants and bars. “The breakthrough cases are proving that the vaccine is not stopping transmission. The vaccine is working in the sense to reduce infection and severe illness.”

The decision to not implement a vaccine mandate comes after 77 people spoke during a three-hour public meeting on Dec. 28.

The next Board of Health meeting is Jan. 20 at 5:30 p.m.

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