President’s Covid Message 3/3/2022

Written by: Robert Zimman

Dear members of the congregation and community,

Temple leadership and staff met on Thursday, February 24, to review our Covid protocols in light of the rapidly improving pandemic situation in NH, Maine, and the nation. On February 23, Governor Chris Sununu (NH) announced the lifting of indoor mask recommendations for public places. As of February 25, Governor Janet Mills (ME) was reviewing Maine’s health guidance.

On Friday, February 25, the CDC announced new guidelines for measuring the level of risk in a community (LOW-green, MEDIUM-yellow, or HIGH-orange) per county, based on three metrics reported in the past 7 days: the number of new hospital admissions, the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied by Covid-19 patients, and the number of new cases per 100,000 population.

We believe this three-point approach to setting response levels is a reasonable alternative to using the single data point of community infection rate. Effective March 1, we will adopt the CDC’s color-coding metric for Rockingham County to set the TIP response level. We will discontinue using the “Covidactnow” infection rate metric.

Effective immediately, the temple’s current response rate is YELLOW. Indoor food service returns, along with additional relaxations of restrictions.

The CDC also recommends an appropriate level of response per level, summarized in the table at the bottom of this message. The temple’s working group decided to keep the existing protocols associated with the color levels in our reopening plan. This creates one substantive difference between CDC’s response guidance for MEDIUM (yellow) and TIP: in TIP’s code yellow guidance, indoor mask-wearing generally continues.

While moving more deliberately to relax restrictions than those around us, TIP leadership remains:

• committed to providing a safe, healthy, and welcoming Jewish experience for our members. We are guided by the following Jewish principles: Safeguarding Life – Pikuah Nefesh, Extraordinary Moment – She’at Hadehak, Profound Love & Kindness – Hesed.
• sensitive to the fact that our preschool students and youngest congregants are not yet eligible for vaccination, while many other congregants are at elevated risk due to age or other factors.
• supportive of those who may choose to mask at any time.
• convinced that people with symptoms, or a positive test, should stay at home to get better and avoid infecting others.
• positively jubilant about planning to resume serving oneg Shabbat and kiddush!

To review the TIP protocols associated with each color level, please refer to the website. The color tab that appears in front of the others when you open the page is the current level based on our three county’s averaged metric.

As always, we continue to monitor the changing situation and welcome your feedback.

Robert Zimman, Board President.

For reference:

CDC GUIDANCE FOR PREVENTION STEPS BASED ON COVID-19 COMMUNITY LEVEL (2/25/2022):

People may choose to mask at any time. People with symptoms, a positive test, or exposure to someone with COVID-19 should wear a mask.

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