Topline
Illinois’ statewide indoor mask mandate could be lifted by the holidays if Covid-19 transmission in the state continues to decline, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Tuesday, part of a broader trend of officials relaxing or dropping mask mandates—or suggesting they could soon—as Covid-19 cases go down nationwide following a summer surge.
A storefront sign reminds people of the mask mandate on July 19 in Los Angeles.
Key Facts
Pritzker said the holidays were an “important marker” for Illinois to lift its indoor mask mandate and other “mitigations,” but noted the state’s Covid-19 metrics would have to continue to trend downward in order for that to happen and declined to give a specific threshold.
The city of Chicago will only lift its local mandate when there are fewer than 200 recorded Covid-19 cases per day, versus the 245 it’s recording now on average, and the city’s health commissioner said Monday it will stay in place for “at least another couple of weeks.”
In California’s Bay Area, San Francisco County and Marin County have lifted some indoor mask requirements—for places like offices, gyms and religious gatherings, which all have a vaccine requirement—and Costra County will relax its mask order November 1, after nearby Santa Cruz County lifted its indoor mandate entirely in September.
Bay Area counties said they will lift their mask mandates entirely when local Covid-19 transmission reaches the “moderate” tier, as designated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and stays within that tier for three weeks, and other areas of California, like Los Angeles and Sacramento, have also said they’ll lift their mask mandates if transmission drops.
At least six towns and cities in Connecticut dropped their indoor mask mandates last week, and mask mandates have also recently been lifted in counties in Nevada, Florida and North Carolina.
School districts in such states as Ohio, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri and Texas have dropped mask mandates due to declining Covid-19 metrics, and at least one district in Massachusetts lifted its mask order after enough students and staff members were vaccinated to meet the state’s threshold for lifting its mandate.
Contra
A number of states and local governments are still hanging on to their mask mandates: New Mexico just extended its mask order through November 12, for instance, and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser doubled down on the district’s mask order after local gym owners asked for it to be lifted. Other Connecticut localities have also elected to keep their mask mandates even as neighboring towns have dropped theirs, and Esmeralda County, Nevada, was the only one in the state that had low enough Covid-19 transmission to be able to drop its mask order.
Big Number
22%. That’s how much Covid-19 cases in the U.S. have dropped by over the past two weeks, according to public health data analyzed by the New York Times, as nationwide cases have trended downward since September following a surge over the summer. Hospitalizations and deaths are also declining by 19% and 14%, respectively.
Key Background
Mask mandates have gone in and out of effect over the course of the year. Nearly every state except Hawaii dropped its mask mandate in the spring, after the CDC changed its guidelines in May to say vaccinated people don’t have to wear masks indoors. Many areas then reimposed those orders over the summer due to the highly infectious delta variant—which is more likely to evade vaccines—which prompted the CDC to backtrack in July and release new guidance recommending masks in areas where transmission is high. Mask orders have been a source of contention throughout the pandemic, and many local governments and school districts were blocked from reimposing mask mandates by statewide orders and laws that prohibit them from doing so—though some enacted the orders anyway.
What We Don’t Know
Whether any mask mandates that get lifted will have to be reimposed. There are factors that could result in Covid-19 transmission going up again, such as a surge in cases following holiday gatherings or the emergence of a new coronavirus variant, like when the delta variant forced places to reimpose their mask mandates over the summer. Evidence also suggests Covid-19 vaccines wane in effectiveness at preventing infections over time—though they still remain protective against severe illness and death—which could leave vaccinated people who are not yet eligible for booster shots more susceptible to infection as time passes.
Further Reading
Schools Begin to Lift Mask Mandates as U.S. Covid Spread Slows (Bloomberg)
Return Of Mask Mandates: Oregon Becomes Latest State To Reimpose Rules (Forbes)
