With Covid cases dropping sharply on the Island, health officials are poised to reconsider the school mask mandate that has been in place for most of the past two years.

With the end of the state-imposed school mask mandate less than two weeks away, Island school committee members split Thursday on whether or not to immediately drop the mandates.

New cases of Covid-19 on the Island continued their downward trend, with 74 cases confirmed for the week ending Friday, Feb. 11 and just 14 more in the five days since.

The question of whether employees of the Steamship Authority can be required to be vaccinated will be decided in federal court.

Two years after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic began, the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital reported its first on-Island death from the coronavirus Tuesday.

As the only federally qualified community health center on the Island, Island Health Care has been at the forefront of the recent surge in the distribution of at-home test kits.

Mirroring the statewide trend, Covid-19 cases on Martha’s Vineyard are seeing a sharp decline following a record spike in early January.

Although suspected during the recent Covid-19 surge, the Island’s first detection of the Omicron variant was finally confirmed this week in a sample sent out for sequencing.

New cases of Covid-19 are on the decline following a surge that saw record case counts, boards of health reported Monday. Free distribution of at-home test kits will continue through the week

A shipment of rapid Covid-19 tests to the Island from the federal government was delayed this week, with test kits supplies in most towns depleted.