Philadelphia Lifts Mask Mandate Again
Philadelphia’s mask mandate went into effect on Monday, and a couple of days later Philadelphia is ending its indoor mask mandate, city health officials said Thursday night. Philadelphia is abruptly reversing course just days after city residents had to start wearing masks again amid a sharp increase in infections.
The Board of Health voted Thursday to rescind the mandate, according to the Philadelphia health department, which released a statement that cited “decreasing hospitalizations and a leveling of case counts.”
“Due to decreasing hospitalizations and a leveling of case counts, the City will move to strongly recommending masks in indoor public spaces as opposed to a mask mandate,” a spokesperson with the Philadelphia Health Department told NBC10 Thursday night. “Given the latest data, the BOH voted to rescind the mandate. Questions can be addressed at a media availability tomorrow morning. (This doesn’t make sense) Details will be issued in an advisory tomorrow morning.”
Philadelphia had become the first major U.S. city to reinstate its indoor mask mandate but faced fierce backlash as well as a legal effort to get the mandate thrown out.
Who knows what will happen next with Philadelphia and their mask mandate but going off the city’s website it states, the mask mandate could only be instituted if two of the following three were valid:
- Average new cases per day are less than 225,
- Hospitalizations are less than 100,
- Cases have increased by more than 50% in the previous 10 days.
There hasn’t been news from the city of Wilmington about reinstating the mask mandate, but we should remain safe and wear masks as a precautionary measure.
