With the COVID-19 pandemic rolling along, the Greene County-wide mask mandate is continuing to be in effect.

The Greene County Supervisors approved a resolution for a county-wide mask mandate this past November and it is set to expire on January 15th. Supervisor Chair John Muir believes the mandate helped to bring attention to the spread of the virus, which at the time the county is nearing the 27-percent positivity rate for the past 14-days. Muir says going forward, there hasn’t been discussions by the Supervisors or the County Emergency Operations Center about making adjustments or continuing the mandate when it expires.

“I think part of the decision there will be, okay do we loosen the requirements and watch closely? But I think people are watching everything enough now. It’ll be easier to say, ‘This is getting up to near that 20(-percent positivity rate) and that’s not acceptable. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens here after the holidays.”

Additionally, the federal government issued a Families First Coronavirus Response Act, where employees were allowed to have up to two weeks of paid time off due to COVID-19 related reasons. However, that program ended December 31st. Muir explains why they chose not to continue the program locally.

“Our decision at that point was just to follow the federal lead. The thought process behind that for me was, the nation as a whole, if the federal government sees the need to readdress that, I think we feel within that medium of the nation. I hope we’re never as bad as some of the national spots were. I think if we’re still at the medium or a little below what they are, following the federal lead is kind of where we are going to stay.”

Overall, Muir believes they have handled the pandemic in a responsible manner.