COVID

Even the most cautious communities in Massachusetts are aligning with statewide plans to lift COVID-19 restrictions

"I'm glad to be aligned for once."

Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone, who is leaving office after four terms, outside City Hall in Somerville. Damian Strohmeyer / The New York Times

By Nik DeCosta-Klipa

3 minutes to read

They delayed reopening plans and kept tight business capacity limits for weeks, if not months, longer than other cities and towns in Massachusetts.

But now, as Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration prepares to lift nearly all COVID-19 restrictions on May 29, even the most cautious communities are falling in line.

“I’m glad to be aligned for once,” Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone told Boston.com in an interview.

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Despite initially delaying most aspects of the Baker administration’s previous, more incremental plan to lift the state’s remaining business restrictions, cities like Boston and Somerville are now aligning with the state’s plan to lift all COVID-19 restrictions and eliminate face covering requirements for most public settings on Memorial Day weekend.

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Brookline, which recently came under national scrutiny for keeping the state’s strict outdoor mask mandate in place, also now says it will follow Baker’s new reopening timeline and rescind the town’s mask order on May 29.

Officials in Cambridge — which also delayed Baker’s move to lift restrictions two weeks ago — now say they’ll “likely” align with the state’s plan to lift all restrictions on May 29. A final decision is expected sometime this week. [Update: The city announced Friday it will also align with the state.]

“Things are evolving, and we’ve seen that even from the CDC,” Curtatone told Boston.com, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recently updated guidance that fully vaccinated people can stop wearing masks in most settings.

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If the governor’s announcement Monday to accelerate by two months his statewide plans to fully reopen came abruptly, the subsequent moves by local officials, including outspoken Baker critics, to follow suit were even more of a surprise.

The densest city in New England, Somerville had taken a notably cautious approach throughout the pandemic, repeatedly delaying reopening phases and keeping tight business capacity limits well after they were eased statewide. The city was also the first community in the state to require residents to wear a face covering “at all times” outside of their homes last spring, which the state later adopted last fall. Movie theaters in Somerville were only allowed to reopen two weeks ago, over ten months after the rest of state.

Curtatone — who criticized Baker for relaxing restrictions too quickly this winter and just two weeks ago said Somerville would delay the first steps of state’s previous reopening plan by three weeks — says the city had been closely monitoring two uncertain variables: the spread of more contagious COVID-19 variants and distribution of vaccines, particularly in more vulnerable low-income and minority communities.

While “not perfect,” the mayor said both metrics had continued to move in the right direction; the city has had a 0.5 percent positive COVID-19 test rate over the past two weeks and nearly half its residents are full vaccinated. There continues to be a wide gap between the vaccination rates for white residents and people of color in Somerville, but Curtatone said it was “much better now than it was even two weeks back” as more local walk-in clinics have opened and accessibility has improved.

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The case is similar in Boston, where Acting Mayor Kim Janey reversed course on her plan to follow the statewide reopening plan on a three-week delay this week, which would have kept settings like nightclubs and saunas closed until Aug. 22. Explaining the decision to now lift all business and gathering restrictions next week, Janey pointed to “more than a month of data showing that cases are low and continue to be low over time.”

“It is clear that vaccines are working to get people from developing serious cases of COVID and greatly decreasing the spread of the virus,” Marty Martinez, Boston’s chief of health and human services, said Monday.

Curtatone says he still has questions about the mask advisory — which essentially amounts to an honor system in which those who aren’t fully vaccinated are asked to keep wearing face coverings in indoor public settings and when they can’t maintain six feet from others outdoors.

Even as they turn the corner, officials stressed that the fight against COVID-19 isn’t over. Residents are still expected to adhere to the mask guidelines if they aren’t fully vaccinated or feel sick.

“If people use poor or reckless judgement it could very well lead to another surge of cases,” Brookline Health Commissioner Dr. Swannie Jett said earlier this week.

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