The end of October will bring an end to nearly 1,000 days of Washington’s COVID-19 state of emergency. But, of course, it doesn’t bring the end of the pandemic. The transition is leaving many important decisions regarding life with the virus to individuals, private businesses, and organizations to sort out and find the best paths forward.
First Hill’s Frye Art Museum is taking steps to create a safe environment for all of its visitors by instituting new “mask-required hours” during the first Sunday of every month. Expect to see more similar solutions in Seattle.
“To accommodate immunocompromised individuals and those who prefer to visit when all guests and staff are required to mask, we offer mask-required hours on the first Sunday of the month from 11 am– 1 pm,” Frye’s announcement reads.
“During mask-required hours, all guests ages 3+ will be required to wear a mask regardless of vaccination status.”
“Negative test results may not be provided in lieu of masking,” the museum adds.
The Frye says it does not typically require staff and patrons to wear masks unless CDC Community Levels in King County reach levels classified as “high.” The county currently reports a “low” level of transmission and cases with a rate of 108.5 positive cases per 100,000 people over the past seven day period.
Washington is scheduled to lift its COVID-19 state of emergency after October 31st. Through the pandemic, Capitol HIll residents and businesses went through new restrictions and requirements including social distancing, mask, and vaccination mandates as officials tried to fine tune the public response to slowing the spread of the virus. Many elements of the emergency have already ended or been canceled but the lifting of the February 2020 declaration will bring a new milestone in emerging from the pandemic across the state with the end of requirements like vaccination requirements for state workers. It will also more fully unhinge a complicated framework of legal structures and policies ranging from counties, to cities, to institutions like schools and hospitals, to private businesses that have built rules and requirements around the official emergency status.
Meanwhile, officials are ready to respond at more local levels to the likelihood of new variants emerging to the fall and winter. Get your booster ASAP.
While small, the new hours at the Frye echoes echo efforts that began early in pandemic lockdowns to create special restricted shopping hours at Seattle grocery stores for older and high risk customers. While few area businesses and venues beyond hospitals and health care facilities continue to require masking, more could opt to institute mask requirements.
The first “mask-required hours” will take place at the Frye Sunday, October 2nd.
You can learn more at fryemuseum.org.
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Masks required just two hours a week? I love the Frye but that’s ridiculous — do they actually think the virus will only be present during those hours and stay away the rest of the week? CDC stats seriously understate the real level of transmission because so many people are testing at home and not reporting the results. This pandemic is far from over, and pretending otherwise will only prolong it further. Masks should be worn at all times in indoor public spaces — and yes, that includes the Frye. I wish it were otherwise.
Agreed. Also, “…special restricted shopping hours..for older and high risk…” tended and will continue to tend to “ghettoize” to seriously unworkable hours those least able to adapt. In the past, it had the earmarks of amounting to a PR based concession to a throw-away consumer segment.
Sorry – no time to stop… Go get your vaccinations and start living your life again.. If you have particular personal risk factors, you may choose to wear an N-95 mask at any time or place, they are widely available now and effective, but there is seriously no reason that vaccinated persons should be subjected to masks or restrictions indoors, outside of health care settings, anymore…
Even the very best mask primarily protects others, not the wearer. It’s truly disheartening that so many people still don’t understand this after 2 1/2 years. Either we ALL mask up indoors, or this thing never ends. Mark my words.
No, You are incorrect. An N-95 protects you, that’s what they designed to do. They are considered to be *respirators*. They proper PPE for airborne infection prevention…. While in a hospital, for maximum protection, you’d be expected to wear one that has been fit tested, non-surgical N-95’s are certainly effective against viruses if worn properly (that is, tightly to the face, over the nose, not taken on/off or touched constantly)…
Cloth masks and surgical style masks are primarily to protect others. They mainly block droplets coming from the wearer, and provide varying degrees of protection to the wearer, depending on their fit and composition.
I work in a hospital… I know the differences.
It is clear that COVID is now and is going to remain endemic, but so are plenty of other viral illnesses. Did you freak out in past years and insist everyone mask up when flu season rolled around – probably not… I’ve had my bivalent booster and I’ll get my flu shot soon and will be perfectly happy.
As I said, you have the choice to continue to mask as long as you want to. Most of us are ready to go on with life.
If you work in a hospital, you should at least know better than to equate Covid-19 and seasonal flu. The former is still far more prevalent, infectious and deadly. And I also wouldn’t expect a hospital worker to claim that wearing a mask prevents anyone from “going on with life.” I AM going on with life, thank you very much. But I’m doing it wearing a mask indoors — and everyone else should too.
You are allowed to wear a mask as long as you like… no one is suggesting stopping you…
And yes, we can now begin to compare COVID and flu.. You have to look at what is happening *now*….
The mortality rate of COVID in vaccinated and boosted individuals is 0.1 per 100,000 (this is pre-bivalent vaccine even)
The mortality rate of flu is 1.8 per 100,000 note – this statistic does not differentiate between vaccinated and unvaccinated persons… but studies have shown vaccination decreases the risk of flu death by about 31%… but even if we assume that all of those 1.8 were unvaccinated and that the flu vaccine works at rate of around 60% prevention of illness and 31% prevention of death, that still leaves around .8 per 100,000 for flu deaths..
Before we had vaccines, I wouldn’t have disagreed with you. Now we do. Circumstances change. The may change again, but I prefer to live in the now.
There’s a difference between a society that takes care of those around them and reasonable risk benefit analysis…. Right now COVID cases in this area are low, hospitalizations due to COVID are low… the number of hospital beds occupied by COVID patients is less than 5%…
Public health messaging hasn’t been poor. The public’s understanding of it has been – and on both ends of the spectrum.
At the beginning of the pandemic, pre-vaccine, we absolutely needed to have measures in place to prevent out of control spread of COVID… those who refused to take any of those steps were definitely out of line.
We now have highly effective vaccines, 15 min tests that can tell us whether or not that cough means isolate or allergies (btw, you can get home tests for flu too) and readily accessible stocks of N-95 masks for those who need them or are simply more comfortable wearing them. Those who are on the other end of the spectrum and still insisting that everyone must continue the highest levels of precautions are now the ones out of line…
At this point, insisting that healthy, vaccinated people wear a mask everywhere they go is like insisting that everyone use a cane wherever they go. because you never know when you might almost fall down… Would you insist that because you are wobbly on your feet, that everyone else must use a cane all of the time too? Because, after all, they just might get wobbly and they could fall on you? Of course not…
You now have the tools to protect yourself and live your life – get vaccinated, get boosted, wear a filtering mask if you feel you have particular vulnerabilities….
Look – I’m not going about flouting people’s requests to mask. If I decide to go somewhere and they still are requesting masks, I’ll wear one, without a fuss (I still wear one all day at work, as the healthcare mandate is still in place). BUT, I won’t agree with continuing wide public mandates, until/unless the situation changes yet again. If the risk rises again, if a new concerning variant arises, then we may need to return to more strict precautions, but at this point I definitely do not believe it to be necessary (and this is not just based on how I feel.. it’s based on science) and that pushing for them will simply annoy and alienate people who may otherwise be mostly in agreement with you….
I think this is to accommodate people who still feel compelled to wear masks in public. Two hours a week is a pretty small window, but there are fewer and fewer people requiring it.
New Exhibits: Virtue Signaling & Security Theatre