Last week the Greene County Supervisors voted to extend two resolutions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Supervisors voted unanimously to extend the countywide mask mandate to March 31st. All regulations and stipulations remain from when the Board originally passed the mask mandate on November 12th. Supervisor Chair John Muir believes having this mandate in place has helped to bring down the county’s overall case number and the 14-day positivity rate.

“People have adapted to it a little bit. But we just thought that we should keep on the way we’re going, since we’ve had some success. We’re still fighting the battle. If you listen to what the experts say is masks are a key part of slowing the spread.”

The Board also extended the paid leave policy for county employees to March 31st. The policy allows for any county employee to use up to two weeks of paid time off for certain COVID-19 reasons as part of the federally enacted Families First Coronavirus Response Act. The policy ended December 31st to coincide with the federal government’s deadline. However, the Supervisors chose to extend the policy for those county employees who had any days remaining, which Muir explains why they did that.

“January 1st didn’t mean anything to COVID. So we had people who had it almost a year ago now and had the benefit. We’re still not out of the woods yet, so we thought well to be fair and just try and alleviate some of the stress that they’re under just going through all of this that they don’t have to worry about that much of that part of it.”

The Board can address either resolution and extend it further out at a future meeting.