At the Monday, August 2, committee meeting of the Heights Libraries Board of Trustees, the Board voted to once again require that library staff and customers (over two years of age) wear masks in all Heights Libraries buildings. The requirement will go into effect Friday, August 6, and be in effect until further notice.
The decision was made for the following reasons:
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a statement that the Delta variant of COVID-19 is prevalent in all 50 states;
- According to the CDC COVID Data Tracker, Cuyahoga County has a substantial rate of COVID transmission and COVID cases in the county have increased by 42.62% in the last seven days; and
- The CDC had been recommending that people who have not received a COVID vaccine wear a mask at all times, and it is now also recommending in areas of “substantial” or high risk of transmission that fully vaccinated people also wear a mask in indoor settings.
Customers are still welcome to use computers, use study rooms, browse, and spend time in our buildings.
If you are going to have a mask mandate, do it right:
1. No facial hair, should be obvious, this makes masks worthless
2. No cloth masks, they are worthless
3. No square masks, too many gaps & worthless
4. Masks must be changed every 15 minutes and be discarded in bio hazard containers
5. No removal of masks for any reason.
6. Eyes must also be protected
7. The virus can exist on clothing & shoes, gowns and shoe covers should also be worn, but not put on until entry in to the building and this should be in a positive pressure environment venting to the outside.
8. Anyone that cannot correctly state the difference between an alcohol and a ketone should not be listened to (re masks) as they lack even a basic level of knowledge in the biological sciences. Passion is never a substitute for knowledge, ask a teenager.