On Monday, Brookline began requiring people to wear face coverings in municipal buildings, including schools and the town library, with COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts continuing to spike.
Under the terms of the mask order, face coverings over the mouth and nose are required in town-owned buildings including the library, senior center, public schools, and any other municipal indoor space where the public gathers, Brookline officials said in a statement Friday.
The statement said town officials will reassess the need for masking weekly by reviewing county- and town-wide COVID-19 case counts, community transmission risk, and other data.
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“We consistently look at COVID-19 data trends and hope this is a short-term requirement following CDC guidance for counties designated as high risk,” said Brookline Health Commissioner Sigalle Reiss in the statement. “The Department will lift the mask requirement once Norfolk County drops to the CDC moderate or low COVID-19 risk levels, or Brookline-specific data suggests that we are no longer in a surge.”
Brookline’s move comes as the state’s COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have been gradually rising for weeks, and the CDC has warned that most of the state is seeing high levels of the virus. The CDC recommends that when virus levels are high, people should mask in indoor public spaces.
“I think it’s pretty clear at this point that we are in a wave,” said Matthew Fox, a professor of epidemiology and global health at the Boston University School of Public Health, via e-mail Friday.
Fox said people should not panic “because we know what to do. For anyone not vaccinated or boosted, go out and get your vaccine. For the rest of us, it’s time to consider masking again indoors, keeping in mind that this is a time-limited measure just until the wave subsides.”
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Daily cases have been rising steadily in Brookline since mid-March, according to the town’s online COVID-19 portal.
On March 11, the town had logged seven new cases of the virus, a figure that jumped to 58 on April 25. On May 11, the portal said, 56 cases were reported, and the figure dipped to 25 on May 14. The portal said the town has seen 9,112 cases and 78 deaths since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.