With indoor masking policies varying between Greater Boston's cities and towns, it can be confusing to figure out which municipalities—and how many—require masks indoors.
Today, MAPC released an interactive map of indoor masking policies in Greater Boston that visualizes whether a municipality requires masks in all indoor public spaces, requires them only in municipal buildings, or has no indoor mask requirement.
The map is still under development and will be updated as municipalities update their masking policies.
In the map above:
- Dark blue cities and towns have local indoor mask mandates for publicly accessible spaces
- Medium-blue cities and towns have local indoor mask mandates in municipal buildings and settings.
- Light blue cities and towns have no local indoor mask mandates.
Tracked local mandates are in addition to current applicable federal and state indoor mask advisories and requirements.
Masks are highly effective at controlling the spread of COVID-19 and its variants. MAPC is urging Massachusetts to institute a statewide indoor mask mandate, but also hopes cities and towns across the region will institute their own local mandates in the absence of a statewide policy.
For more information on the effectiveness of indoor mask mandates, read the following peer-reviewed articles:
-
Association between COVID-19 outcomes and mask mandates, adherence, and attitudes (PLOS ONE)
-
An upper bound on one-to-one exposure to infectious human respiratory particles (National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America)