Even as the school committee declined last week to mandate masks in school this coming year, the Westport Select Board on Monday evening voted to require that all town employees and visitors to public buildings wear masks while conducting their business. The vote came several weeks after the board of health issued an advisory recommending the wearing of masks.

Meanwhile, Westport’s latest COVID-19 case statistics are all trending in the wrong direction, with new cases rising every week for the past three weeks.

During the first two weeks of July, board of health officials counted two new cases of the virus in Westport. During the second half of July, new cases rose to 28, and there were 42 additional cases reported during the first 12 days of August. At least two people from Westport are currently hospitalized with COVID-19.

With an unvaccinated population of more than 4,000, not including more than 1,707 children under 12 who are not eligible, that "makes for a large pool of residents who are especially vulnerable to the highly infectious Delta variant that now accounts for over 86 percent of the cases in Massachusetts," Westport Board of Health Director Matthew J. Armendo said Friday.

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 positive cases of Westport residents on the state’s weekly city & town report of August 12, 2021 was 1,664, up 20 since the prior week. The rolling 14-day incidence rate of cases rose again from 10.4 to 15.8 per 100,000 compared to the prior week. This is also above the statewide average of 12.2 cases per 100,000 population.

"If the state was still classifying communities on the Red/Yellow/Green scale, Westport would fall into the RED category," Mr. Armendo wrote Friday.

While cases are on the rise, so is the number of those residents getting vaccinated. According to the tate, 10,752 Westport residents (64 percent) are at least partially vaccinated. That is up 111 from last week."

To learn more about testing and to find a site near you, see www.mass.gov/covid-19-

testing.