State College Borough Council extends indoor masking requirement through January
The COVID-related mask ordinance in the State College Borough has been extended through the end of January 2022.
The State College Borough Council unanimously voted to extend its mask ordinance during its meeting Monday evening, following the recommendation from the State College Board of Health as the world continues to face the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ordinance requires everyone to wear a face mask indoors — regardless of COVID-19 vaccination status — in any borough business or building open to the public. It went into effect in mid-September. A stricter COVID-related ordinance was first passed in August 2020.
The extension comes after the continued increase in Centre County’s COVID-19 transmission rate and high admission rate at the Mount Nittany Medical Center, as well as a new variant.
According to Mount Nittany Medical Center’s dashboard, the hospital was treating 64 COVID patients Monday between the ages of 25 and 95. Seven were currently in the ICU. On Thursday, the hospital had to temporarily divert emergency department patients.
In a separate presentation during Monday’s meeting, Mount Nittany Health’s executive vice president and chief strategy officer addressed council members about surging cases and hospitalizations.
“Our average daily census ... of COVID patients so far in the month of December is the highest it’s been at any point in the 21 month pandemic,” Tom Charles said. “So, obviously we are not out from underneath this by any stretch of the imagination.”
The masking ordinance is “imperfect” because there’s no enforcement, council member Katherine Yeaple said, but it is the “right thing to do.”
Businesses can be fined up to $300 per day for violating the local ordinance, while individuals can be fined $300 per infraction. State College police Lt. Greg Brauser has said the emphasis has been on “education, not citation.”
Still, council member Theresa Lafer said the ordinance offers local businesses, their employees and customers protection. She said business owners have the support of the ordinance and should they need it — if a customer got upset, for example — they could call the State College Police Department.
“I’m not saying that we want to throw anybody in jail or anything but I am saying that we do not want somebody who is angry or upset or having a bad day to take it out on our community,” Lafer said.
The board of health will meet next month to provide another recommendation for the council on the ordinance status, the agenda for Monday’s meeting stated. At that meeting the board will reassess the masking ordinance while taking into consideration the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Department of Health guidelines, the current transmission numbers in Centre County and any new information on the omicron variant.
Penn State also recently announced that mandatory masking indoors will continue in the spring semester, but the university will “continue to monitor the evolution of the pandemic and the spread of various coronavirus variants and will adjust Penn State’s masking policy when it is safe to do so.”
This story was originally published December 7, 2021 at 8:48 AM.
