By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – At Friday morning’s weekly Covid briefing, County Health Officer Dr. Allison Berry discussed the CDC’s latest guidance on mask wearing that says fully vaccinated people do not have to wear masks.
“If you are fully vaccinated, it is safe to basically live your life. I think the primary confusion right now is how rapidly that was rolled out, and there’s been just a lot of confusion in the community and a lot of valid questions from businesses of, ‘How do you enact this?’, since it’s really hard to know who’s vaccinated and who’s not.”
Basically, Dr. Berry says vaccinated people should continue to follow the rules of the places that we visit. If a business asks you to wear a mask, wear a mask.
“Many businesses have chosen to keep mask mandates in place because they can’t verify the vaccine status of the people coming in. And I think that’s reasonable.”
Dr. Berry also discussed how things are changing in the workplace now that more people are getting vaccinated, and whether it’s okay to ask employees if they’ve had their shots.
“It’s important to know that it is both legal and recommended to assess the vaccine status of your workers. Basically, what you want to do is find out whether or not they’re vaccinated. If they are unvaccinated, they do still have to wear a mask. In most places, you cannot force vaccinations, but we highly recommend encouraging it. It’s the best way to make sure that your staff are safe in the workplace.”
Dr. Berry was asked if inquiring about someone’s vaccination status wasn’t a violation of federal HIPAA privacy regulations.
“So that is a common misconception, that vaccine status is covered under HIPAA. It’s not. So you can and should assess the vaccine status of folks. What you can’t do, which is a violation of the ADA, is to go that next step and ask why they’re not vaccinated.”
There are 3 vaccination events scheduled for this weekend. There will be Pfizer event at Port Angeles High School on Saturday from 9-to-noon for people 12 and over, on Sunday they’ll be in downtown Port Angeles from 1-5pm and at Sequim High School from 10-2. Find out more at clallam.net.