Philadelphia’s indoor mask mandate is coming to an end.
“Due to the reduction in hospitalizations and the equalization of the number of cases, the city will move to strongly recommend masks in closed public places, instead of the mask mandate,” a Philadelphia health spokesman told NBC10 on Thursday night. “According to the latest data, BOH voted to cancel the mandate.
The mandate will be revoked on Friday.
The opposite comes just days after Philadelphia became the first major city in the United States to renew its mandate for the Covid-19 indoor mask, as the highly contagious omicron BA.2 sub-variant increases the number of new Covid cases nationwide. .
The health department did not release data to support the abolition of masking, saying more information would be provided on Friday. But Health Commissioner Dr Cheryl Betigol told the health council in a public meeting Thursday night that hospitalizations had unexpectedly fallen by 25% in a few days.
“We are in a situation where we really did not expect to be in this soon, but this is good news,” she said, according to a transcript of the meeting. “So I’m really happy … to say that it doesn’t seem necessary to impose masks in Philadelphia anymore, and that we can actually move on to just a strong recommendation.
Philadelphia resumed its mandate for masks on Monday after cases jumped 50 percent from April 1st to April 11th, health officials said. Hospitalizations were stable as of April 11, but have grown rapidly since then. The number of COVID hospitalizations in the city nearly doubled last week, from 46 on April 11 to 82 on Monday – what health officials called “an alarming sign that the wave could be more dangerous than we had hoped.”
“We have seen this wave of the pandemic that has engulfed Europe and now appears to be coming to Philadelphia,” Betigol said in a statement Monday. “We must do everything we can to ensure that our most vulnerable neighbors and loved ones remain safe. Each of us has the ability to save lives today by putting on our masks and helping to stop the increase in cases. “
The city was on level 1 or “everything clean” after the initial jump of the omicron gave way, which means that mandatory measures such as mandatory indoor masks were removed. But the recent rise in BA.2 cases has moved the city to level 2, or “attention” that requires masks.
Many cities and states abolished mask mandates in February and March as cases fell from the peak of the pandemic from an average of 808,000 new cases a day in mid-January to about 35,000 new cases a day this week. But infections in the United States have begun to rise in recent weeks, and cities like Philadelphia are experiencing a new jump in cases.
The Transportation Security Administration said Monday it would stop enforcing mask rules hours after U.S. District Judge Catherine Kimball Misel in Tampa, Florida, ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exceeded its limits when it imposed the covers. for a person in airplanes, trains, buses and other types of public transport.
While the original decision on Monday repealed Philadelphia’s mask rules for public transportation, including SEPTA, the mandate remained in place for other indoor venues, including restaurants, gyms and businesses. Many business owners and residents have expressed confusion about when and where to wear masks.
The restaurant industry has rejected the city’s masked mandate again, saying workers will bear the brunt of customers’ anger over the new rules.
Several companies and residents have filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania State Court to overturn the renewed term. The Health Council’s vote to revoke the mandate came after board members met in private to discuss the lawsuit.
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