The Covid-19 outbreak in Provincetown helped spur a change in CDC mask guidance. Here’s what residents have learned and how they are responding

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“That’s kind of what we’re saying is the official start of summer,” said Christopher Roberts, who owns a puzzle and game store in Provincetown. “July 4th is busy… and then really from that day on, it’s like that.”

Published Friday by the CDC, the study said 469 cases of Covid-19 were identified in Massachusetts residents who traveled to Barnstable County — which includes Provincetown — between July 3 and July 17. Public gatherings.” Nearly three-quarters of these cases were among fully vaccinated people, a finding that suggests vaccinated people can also spread the virus, including the dangerous delta type that has been fueling the country’s latest wave. Disease Control said there have been five hospital admissions linked to the outbreak – four of them fully vaccinated – and no deaths reported.The agency updated mask guidelines last week to recommend that vaccinated people wear masks indoors when in areas with Covid transmission 19 “Large” or “High” to prevent the spread of this variant.

“Personally I had the impression that it would be difficult to contract (Covid-19)” after getting the vaccine, said Ken Horgan, a hotel owner in Provincetown.

“But I quickly learned, as we’ve all been here, that vaccination doesn’t give you the ability to engage in high-risk activities or assume you don’t have to take any precautions,” he told CNN reporter Alisyn Camerota on CNN. Friday.

To curb the spread of the disease, local leaders have remanded the mask back to Provincetown, and fully vaccinated residents and business owners say they are doing their part to double safety measures again and push for more vaccinations.

They say the combination was a wake-up call that while the vaccine is highly effective in preventing serious illness and death, it works best when combined with other precautions.

“We were told that if you get vaccinated, you are almost invincible and I think we… assumed that wrong,” Township Manager Alex Morse said Friday.

Petri dish for the country

Debbie Nadolny, director and coordinator of the AMP Show in Provincetown, said that while she, her partner and most other people she knows in the city have been vaccinated, she felt that mask requirements and other safety measures had been lifted too soon. She said she mostly continued to wear her mask after her vaccination and encouraged others to do so when they were at the show.

“It seemed to me common sense to keep going,” she said. “Only half the country has been vaccinated, and we haven’t got, you know, the vaccination rate of 70 or 80% in the country yet. So why are we celebrating?”

CDC data showed that approximately 57.5% of the US population has received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine and about 49.5% have been fully vaccinated. In Barnstable County, nearly 76% of people have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to the state’s latest data, and with the outpouring of people the city saw in July and no widespread requirement for masks, Nadolny said the outbreak did not happen. surprise her. Local leaders held an emergency meeting last week and mandated an indoor mask for Provincetown. This requirement applies to all indoor restaurants, theater or performance venues, bars, dance floors, residences, fitness centers, retail stores, personal services, offices and other public facilities.

Nadolny said she is now mandating masks at the fair and hopes the township mandate will not be lifted any time soon. She said eliminating the requirement for masks was a “mistake” in the first place, and she hopes other parts of the country will learn from the town’s experience and need masks as well as push for more vaccinations.

“Provinstown is a small place, but obviously we were the petri dish of the country,” she said.

Roberts, who owns the puzzle store, said it implements mask requirements and if customers don’t have a face covering, staff will provide it for them. Now that he knows vaccinated people can also spread the virus, Roberts said he is very careful not to get infected because his 7-year-old son still does not qualify for a Covid-19 shot.

‘Going in the right direction’

Horgan, the hotel owner, said the outbreak was a sobering and open-ended experience. He said local leaders and business owners had “stepped together” and applied their own mask and vaccinations. His hotel, like others in the city, is now asking for proof of vaccination.

“If you’re planning to travel and haven’t been vaccinated, please, please don’t come to Provincetown,” Horgan said. “We take our health very seriously and for our local business to continue, we need to keep working. And to keep working, we need to stay healthy.”

In an update Friday, the Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment announced that 934 Covid-19 cases were associated with the Provincetown cluster as of July 29 — 560 of them are Massachusetts residents and 231 of them live in Provincetown.

There are now 103 active cases in the city, according to Morse, the city manager.

Morse said in a recent Facebook update that the local test positivity rate has fallen sharply since the start of the rally, from 15% on July 15 to 4.6% on July 29.

Morse told CNN Friday that the latest numbers, in addition to the new mask mandate, mean the city is “moving in the right direction.”

“What we take from here is that this delta variant is highly transmissible, more contagious, and you’re more likely to have an undiagnosed infection, but it’s less likely that you’re going to be hospitalized, and certainly not going to die,” she said.

“The delta variant is incredibly dangerous for unvaccinated individuals, and while we have a mask mandate in the short term, our long-term way out of this is really through vaccination.”

Dr Jane Aronson, 69, was among those fully vaccinated and contracted the virus in Provincetown. She said she had symptoms including shortness of breath, a cough and a mild fever. She said the vaccine saved her life.

“That’s exactly what happened,” she told CNN reporter Anderson Cooper on Friday. “I immediately felt scared, but I knew this vaccine would work.”

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