(Adopted August 17th, 2021)
Background: The UUS:E Policy Board has charged the Emergency Preparedness Team to develop procedures to safely reopen, close and use the meeting house. This was to be done using scientific data to provide guideposts to measure and predict an acceptable level of risk to all members, staff and guests.
The Emergency Preparedness Team has recommended, and the Policy Board has accepted, the following guidance for evaluating the continued reopening and using the meeting house safely.
1. The Unitarian Universalist Society: East (UUS:E) will use the resources developed by Covid Act Now, an independent, national non-profit coalition created to provide COVID-19 predictive data analysis. This group is a consortium of multidisciplinary experts including technologists, epidemiologist, health experts and public policy leaders from Georgetown and Stanford Universities. The data is updated daily to display real-time information. Predictive trends are calculated for important indicators to assess the current relative risks of COVID-19. In a word, this resource identifies the information needed, and the data required, for any group to determine when it might be safe to reopen. (Visit www.covidactnow.org and find the data for Connecticut.)
2. Covid Act Now has identified five data trends as being advisory or predictive of when a safe (or safer) environment might emerge. These data sets will be tracked by UUS:E’s Emergency Preparedness Team to monitor the reduction of the COVID-19 threat to an acceptable level of risk.
- The following metrics will be used to evaluate the continued safe reopening at varying levels of increased risk designated by covidactnow.org’s graphs for each metric.
Mandatory metric 1. “Daily New Cases per 100,000 population” for 5 consecutive days:
– Green – Low – at or below 1
– Yellow – Medium – above 1 to 10
– Orange – High – above 10 to 25
– Red – Critical – above 25 to 75
Mandatory metric 2: “Infection Rate” for 5 consecutive days:
– Green – Low – at or below .9
– Yellow – Medium – above .9 to 1.1
– Orange – High – above 1.1 to 1.4
– Red – Critical – above 1.4 to 2.0
Advisory metric 1: “Positive Test Rate” for advisory use only without setting a threshold to initiate additional mitigations.
Advisory metric 2: “ICU Capacity for advisory use only without setting a threshold to initiate additional mitigations.
Advisory metric 3: “Percent Fully vaccinated.” for advisory use only without setting a threshold to initiate additional mitigations.
The UUS:E Policy Board will use these public health metrics to evaluate when and how it is safe to continue reopening the meeting house safely. Depending on the level of risk indicated by the two mandatory metrics, the UUS:E Policy Board could consider the following Mitigation Options in addition to other mitigation steps it might consider. This list is in categories (such as Mask Wearing, Social Distancing, etc.) and is in increasing order of risk reduction with the least restrictive at the top of each category:
Mask Wearing (bullet points from least restrictive to most restrictive)
* Vaccinated people with consent of others can remove masks
* All persons gathered in the building must wear masks (currently in place)
Note: Sunday service speakers and singers on the chancel may remove masks.
Social Distancing at gatherings (bullet points from least restrictive to most restrictive)
* 6 feet apart (currently in place)
* Consider different spacing in identified rooms
Number of people at gatherings (bullet points from least restrictive to most restrictive)
* Unlimited # of people (for hybrid services and RE program)
* 15 for Sunday Services (currently in place, with RE currently conducted outdoors)
* Outside groups (e.g., AA) (currently no limit)
* Impose further limits, such as outside groups limited to 15.
Building Closure
* Close the building for two weeks with an ongoing assessment (Default: reopen unless decision made to remain closed)
* Close the building long term. Reopen and remove restrictions at any time the diminishing metrics reach the point where the restrictions were imposed.
Consumption of food and drink (ie, Sunday morning hospitality, receptions or memorial services)
* Meals and drinks allowed
* Snacks and coffee / drinks allowed
* Only coffee / drinks allowed
* Not allowed (currently in place)
