New York to Drop Indoor Mask Mandate for Businesses
ine states this week announced plans to roll back requirements that people wear masks at indoor venues, including businesses and, in some cases, schools, as Covid-19 case numbers decline and pressure to return to normal life rises.
Officials in New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Rhode Island said Wednesday that rules requiring masks or proof of vaccinations intended to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic would end by March. Earlier in the week, California, Oregon, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware officials announced similar rollbacks.
All of those states, which voted for President Biden in the 2020 election, now aren’t following recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after previously hewing to federal guidance to continue requiring face covering indoors and in schools.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul removes her protective mask during a press conference in New York on Wednesday.
Photo: timothy a. clary/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images“The Covid clouds are parting,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said after announcing requirements to wear masks in restaurants and offices would lapse on Thursday.
Federal public-health officials, meanwhile, said Wednesday that they are considering changes, but continue to recommend mask-wearing in public indoor settings in much of the country.
“We want to ensure that public-health guidance we’re providing meets the moment we’re in,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a briefing. “We recognize people are tired of the pandemic. They’re tired of wearing masks.”
More than 35 states in the Midwest and South don’t have masking requirements, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy. Some states, largely Republican-led, restrict localities or school districts from imposing such requirements.
The changes will put more responsibility on businesses in these states to decide whether to continue requiring masks and on individuals to decide whether and where to wear them if not required.
Walmart Inc., Home Depot Inc. and other big retail chains said Wednesday they are reviewing their own requirements for face coverings but had no changes to announce.
The nine states that announced rollbacks of mask rules this week will still allow local governments and school districts to maintain their own requirements, potentially creating confusion as people travel across county lines.
People wearing masks while walking through an indoor shopping area in New York on Wednesday.
Photo: Seth Wenig/Associated PressMajor metropolitan areas including New York City, Los Angeles and Santa Clara County, home to San Jose, are keeping their mask or vaccination rules in place, local officials said.
“Being cautious still makes sense and doing everything we can to drive down the high rate of transmission is an appropriate goal for us to continue to embrace,” Barbara Ferrer, director of public health for Los Angeles County, said in a statement Tuesday.
At Sunday’s Super Bowl, which will be held in the Los Angeles County city of Inglewood, attendees will be required to provide proof of Covid-19 vaccination and wear masks.
The 14-day average of newly reported coronavirus cases was 335,251 on Tuesday, down from 548,789 new cases a week earlier, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The country’s two-week average of new infections is still substantially above what it was before the spread of the new variant, when the 14-day average regularly was under 100,000.
About 68% of people in the U.S. age 5 and up are fully vaccinated, CDC data show.
New York will continue to require masks on public transportation and in healthcare settings, Ms. Hochul said, and hasn’t reached a decision on its policy requiring masks in schools, which is the subject of a lawsuit. The state’s number of daily Covid-19 infections and the seven-day average positivity rate have dipped below levels in early December when the Omicron variant began spreading in the state and Ms. Hochul issued the broader indoor mask rules.
“I believe this has made a huge difference,” she said. “We have a very good picture that has been painted over the last few weeks.”
Illinois will also continue to require masks in schools, but its general indoor mask requirement will lapse on Feb. 28, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, said. Delaware Gov. John Carney, also a Democrat, signed an order to lift the state’s universal indoor-mask mandate, effective Friday. Oregon’s state health authorities have said indoor-mask requirements would lapse at the end of March.
Massachusetts isn’t extending its mask mandate for K-12 schools beyond Feb. 28, its commissioner of elementary and secondary education, Jeff Riley, said Wednesday. Denver is ending its similar requirement beginning Feb. 25, officials said. The Democratic governors of New Jersey and Connecticut said school districts would be able to set their own masking policies in coming weeks.
“It’s time to give our kids a sense of normalcy and lift the mask mandate on a statewide basis for schools,” Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, said at a press conference. There are relatively few severe cases of Covid-19 among young people and testing is widely available, he said. As of Feb. 1, 51% of Massachusetts children ages 5 to 11 had received at least one vaccine dose, according to the state’s department of public health.
Odis Johnson, a professor of public health and education at Johns Hopkins, said he saw no reason to remove mask requirements in schools until more students are vaccinated.
“At this point, we don’t have the vaccination rates that suggest we should lessen these mask mandates in the absence of some really convincing, compelling research that says there is a detriment to learning from wearing them,” Dr. Johnson said.
The Biden administration is caught between public-health officials’ guidelines and governors who are easing restrictions as Covid-19 cases decline, with the pandemic expected to be a top issue in this year’s midterm elections. The White House has deferred to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to set guidelines on pandemic measures, but said local officials may decide how to implement them.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday that the agency recommends people wear masks in public indoor settings where transmission of Covid-19 is substantial or high. CDC data show that is the case across the U.S., even as reported new infections have fallen from the winter’s Omicron-driven peak. The CDC has also recommended universal masking in K-12 schools regardless of vaccination status.
“We certainly understand the need and desire to be flexible,” Dr. Walensky said. But “we are not there yet,” she said of doing away with masking recommendations.
The CDC is looking at its guidance as cases and hospitalizations decline, she added, and analyzing data on caseloads, fatalities, wastewater infection rates and other information in making its decisions.
The CDC recommends that people 2 years and older wear masks in public indoor places if they aren’t up-to-date with their vaccines. The agency also recommends that people who are immunocompromised wear masks.
Among the small number of states still requiring masks indoors is Washington. Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, said Wednesday that his state would drop its outdoor mask requirements starting Feb. 18, but he was still reviewing data before making a decision on face coverings indoors.
“I agree with the CDC that today is not the day to totally eliminate masks,” he said, “but it is a day that is rapidly approaching.”
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