NORTHAMPTON — On Wednesday, two people stood outside City Hall, taping handmade signs onto the side of the building’s stairs. The signs, bearing messages such as “Stop dis-ease, put your body at ease,” were in opposition to a mask mandate that came into effect in the town at 12:01 a.m. that morning.
Lon Goodman and Jess Carey of Northampton were holding a two-person “peaceful rally” to express their concerns about mandating masks.
“We’re here for people’s free choice to make their own decisions about their personal risks and how they want to live their lives,” Goodman said. “To require certain things like vaccinations and masks, I think that we’re imposing too much of our own will upon other people.”
The mask mandate was issued by Northampton’s Board of Health in response to the rising COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts and growing concerns about the more infectious delta variant. It specifies that masks are required for indoor spaces that are open to the public, including stores and restaurants (except while eating).
Easthampton also has a mask advisory in place but has yet to make it a requirement. Amherst officials approved an indoor mandate Thursday evening, while South Hadley has issued a mask advisory rather than a mandate.
Northampton residents have mixed feelings about the new restrictions.
Some residents, like Goodman and Carey, are struggling to accept the new mandate so soon after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in late May. Other residents, like Jenna Jones, a sales associate at the downtown outerwear store Synergy, feel safer knowing that customers will be required to wear masks.
“Each and every one of us believes in the health of the community and keeping our families, friends and kids just safe,” Jones said.
Synergy has a large blue sign posted on its front door informing customers that masks are required to enter. The sign has remained up throughout the whole summer, but Synergy employees had stopped enforcing it when COVID-19 restrictions were lifted. Now, they plan to begin enforcing it again.
“We just want everybody to be safe. We want our customers to be happy and healthy,” Jones said.
For Latisha Rocke, a Belchertown resident visiting Northampton for lunch, the mandate isn’t much of a change. Rocke has been consistently wearing a mask in indoor public spaces since the beginning of the pandemic.
“I used to get sick a lot before masks came and now I haven’t gotten a cold one time in almost two years,” Rocke said.
Easthampton is also taking steps to encourage masking, but its guidance is less strict. On Monday, that city’s Board of Health issued an advisory, rather than a mandate, urging people to wear masks in indoor public spaces.
Some Easthampton residents are happy with the advisory.
Tamara Cornehlsen is an Easthampton resident and the mother of two children, a 3-year-old and a 1½-year-old. Because their children are too young to receive the vaccine, the Cornehlsen family has been extra careful about masking.
“We had probably a week or so where we stopped wearing masks,” Cornehlsen said. “And, like at the grocery store, it felt a little bit weird — we didn’t feel totally confident that it was the right thing to do.”
Since then, the Cornehlsen family has returned to wearing masks in indoor public spaces, with the exception of 1½-year-old Kaya, who is too small for most masks.
Tamara Cornehlsen said that she wouldn’t mind if the advisory were changed into a requirement.
“I think knowing what we know, it seems like there’s no harm in having a mandate,” Cornehlsen said.
Noah Murray, a 15-year-old Easthampton high school student, doesn’t feel the same way about masking. He said that he would only wear a mask if it was mandatory. He doesn’t wear one now, in part because he already had COVID-19.
“It didn’t really faze me,” he said of the virus. “I’m a healthy kid, so I think I’ll be alright.”
Gabe Richardson, a Montgomery landscape specialist who was visiting Easthampton for a job, is also opposed to a mandate.
“I would rather people decide for themselves to do the right thing,” Richardson said.
Richardson, who was sitting at the bar at Se7ens Sports Bar and Grill, doesn’t feel that masks are always necessary in public spaces.
“There’s only like three people at this bar right now,” he said.
Lauren Longley, a nurse at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, said that she thinks a mandate in Easthampton would be a good idea because of what she’s seen at her job.
“I work on a unit where we take COVID patients and we were in the clear for a little while, but now it’s definitely coming back and people are pretty sick,” Longley said. “I think the mandate would be a reasonable request to get ahead of things.”