Dear community members:
I am writing to you today about something very close to my heart – the health and safety of our fellow Jefferson County residents.
The Wisconsin State Supreme Court has overturned the current public health emergency, which also ended the mask order that was in place to keep Wisconsinites safe. From a public health perspective, this decision is disappointing and endangers our community members — but it does not need to change our own decisions about protecting our health and the health and safety of our community and those around us.
Since the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic, we at the Jefferson County Health Department have followed the science, and we know many of our community members have done the same. The science is clear – masks work. Wearing a mask helps us to protect each other, our community, and everyone else in Wisconsin.
Science shows that wearing a proper mask helps prevent transmission of the virus, and science also shows that the more people who wear them, the more effective they are at stopping the spread of COVID-19 at a population level. (For more information on the science behind masks and the effectiveness of mask orders, there are links to research below.)
After more than a year of dealing with COVID-19, I know people are tired and would like to go back to living without fear of the virus. We ask you to look ahead. A third of Jefferson County residents have received at least one dose of their vaccine, 1 million Wisconsin residents have completed their vaccine series, and all Wisconsinites aged 16 and older are now eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. We are making great progress, but still have 70 percent of county residents who remain without protection from a vaccine.
Right now, mitigation measures like wearing a mask are more important than ever. We have seen a significant increase of about 40 percent in cases over the past several weeks, which means the virus is likely to spread even more if we do not take action to stop it right now. Help us protect your family and ours by wearing your mask whenever you are in public or around others.
Masking up works. Together, we can stop the spread.
Thank you for all your cooperation and patience throughout this pandemic, and thank you for prioritizing the health and safety of the residents of Jefferson County and the rest of Wisconsin. —Sincerely, Gail Scott, BSN, RN, health officer/director, Jefferson County Health Department.
P.S.: For research on mask effectiveness, please see “An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19” from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United State of America, Jan. 26, 2021. The evidence review shows that wearing masks reduces the transmission of respiratory droplets, and that there are benefits at the community level.
For research on mask order effectiveness, please see “Trends in County-Level COVID-19 Incidence in Counties With and Without a Mask Mandate” from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, Nov. 27, 2020.
The study shows that counties in Kansas that adopted the statewide mask mandate saw a decrease in COVID-19 cases, while
counties that opted out saw an increase. In counties that participated in the mask mandate, there was a 6-percent decrease in new cases per 100,000 residents. In counties that did not, there was 100-percent increase in new cases per 100,000 residents.
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