NEW YORK –
New York state will lift the mask mandate in schools on March 2, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Sunday, citing a large drop in COVID-19 infections and new federal guidelines.
Hours later, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said he is considering lifting vaccine mandates for restaurants, bars and theaters next week if infections and hospitalizations continue their downward trend.
The mask mandate among the roughly 1 million school children in the city could also be lifted, Adams said in a statement.
The decision will not be announced until Friday, when a full week of classes will have been completed after the return of students from the country’s largest school system after a week of vacation, he said.
The pair of announcements marks a major turnaround for the city and state, once an epicenter of the global pandemic.
“The day has come,” Hochul said at a news conference in Albany.
Under new guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), most Americans can now stop wearing masks, including students in schools.
“That’s why I’m very confident that it’s time to lift the mask requirements,” Hochul said.
State officials said that as of Saturday, the seven-day average of new infections fell below 1,671 for the first time since late July. Other statistics also show a rapid decline, such as hospitalizations and deaths.
CDC guidelines for other enclosed spaces are not mandatory, which means cities and institutions even in low-risk areas can apply their own rules. Hochul said counties and cities could keep their mandates and parents could keep sending their kids to school wearing masks.
The new provisions also apply to children aged 2 and over in daycare centers.
Hochul said Adams was consulted before she made her announcement, and even had a previous conversation on Sunday.
Despite criticism of the state’s pandemic measures, Hochul said she remained determined to stick to information from health experts and authorities and “not allow criticism or politics to enter into this decision-making.”
This month, Hochul allowed a broad mask-wearing mandate in closed settings to expire, but said the requirements would continue for schools. The governor had promised that she would review the matter for schools in the first week of March.
The broad mask mandate was enforced during the December spike in COVID-19 cases due to the omicron variant.
These are still required in some places, including public transportation, homeless shelters, prisons, nursing homes, and hospitals.