Q&A: CDC Halloween guidelines & Covid-19

October 20, 2020

Halloween: When and how

When should we celebrate Halloween?

This is a question received by City staff each year around this time. The answer this year is the same as all “normal” years — that is, all years prior to 2020 — and that is that the City of Bartlesville does not regulate or even suggest celebration times for Halloween. No matter what day of the week Halloween falls on, City offices and services continue as normally scheduled, so whatever day is best for you is fine by us.

Why hasn’t the City issued any guidelines or recommendations for Halloween, particularly as it relates to wearing masks?

When it comes to Covid-19, the City relies on the expertise of the medical and infectious disease community, primarily as it is dispensed by local and state health departments and the Centers for Disease Control, for information regarding safety measures and precautions relevant to preventing community spread of the disease.

This input has been used to influence some City policies, such as the one requiring City employees to wear a mask in most circumstances, as well as some City ordinances, though very few of those remain in effect today. In fact, there are no Covid-19 ordinances still in effect that directly apply to the public, except, perhaps, the one that allows City Hall to maintain amended hours (8:30 a.m. to noon and 1-4:30 p.m.) to allow time for City staff to disinfect public areas and the lobbies at all police and fire stations to close to the public until further notice.

So on Halloween, as with any other day during the ongoing pandemic, the guidelines put forth by the Oklahoma State Department of Health and the CDC are likely the best options to consider. The City wants everyone to have a safe and happy Halloween, whenever and however it’s celebrated. If a mask is appropriate for your chosen activity, by all means, please wear one. If not, there is no law requiring you to do so. For more information, see www.cdc.gov.

Covid-19: OSDH, CDC best sources of information

Why is there no information about Covid-19 in City Beat anymore?

This question was somewhat answered in the answer to the previous question, particularly in the second paragraph. Essentially, nothing has changed in terms of City policy or municipal ordinances as they relate to Covid-19 since June, when the City Council adopted Ordinance No. 3528.

That ordinance repealed most measures outlined in previous City ordinances to allow Gov. Kevin Stitt’s “Open Up and Recover Safely” (OURS) plan to cover mitigation measures pertaining to business, restaurant and individual guidelines. Readers may recall the OURS plan was a phased approach to re-opening schools and businesses. The state has expired all three phases of the plan and has re-opened accordingly.

In addition to repealing most mitigation measures implemented previously by the City Council, City Ordinance No. 3528 also authorized resumption of utility cutoffs for accounts showing past due balances, allowed City meetings to resume in-person in addition to teleconference and videoconference, restricted access or amended hours for some City facilities (City Hall, police and fire lobbies) and continued the Economic Recovery Task Force as facilitated by the Bartlesville Development Authority. These are the only Covid-19-related measures approved by the City Council that are still in place.

This means that Bartlesville residents and businesses are operating under the guidelines and recommendations of the State of Oklahoma and the CDC, not the City of Bartlesville. The information publicly distributed by these entities is fairly extensive and can be accessed via their websites, https://coronavirus.health.ok.gov/covid-19-alert-system and https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html.