HealthcarePhiladelphia to end mask mandate, days after reinstating it

Philadelphia to end mask mandate, days after reinstating it


Philadelphia is ending its indoor mask mandate, city health officials said Thursday night, abruptly reversing course just days after people in the city 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.”

The mandate went into effect Monday. Philadelphia had ended its earlier indoor mask mandate March 2.

Philadelphia to restore indoor mask mandate as cases rise

The health department did not release data to back up its reversal on masking, saying more information would be provided Friday. But the acting health commissioner, Dr. Cheryl Bettigole, told the Board of Health at a public meeting Thursday night that hospitalizations had unexpectedly gone down 25% in a matter of days.

“We’re in a situation that we really had not anticipated being in this soon but it is good news,” she said, according to a transcript of the meeting. “So I’m really very happy … to say it appears that we no longer need to mandate masks in Philadelphia and that we can actually move to simply a strong recommendation.”

Philadelphia had become the first major U.S. city to reinstate its indoor mask mandate, but faced fierce blowback as well as a legal effort to get the mandate thrown out. Few masks were worn at the Philadelphia 76ers’ home playoff game on Monday, even though they were required under city rules.

City officials said the mandate would be lifted Friday morning.

When the city announced April 11 that mandatory masking was coming back, Bettigole said it was necessary to forestall a potential new wave driven by an omicron subvariant. She said Philadelphia had crossed the threshold of rising cases at which the city’s guidelines call for people to wear masks indoors.

Not a Modern Healthcare subscriber? Sign up today.

“If we fail to act now, knowing that every previous wave of infections has been followed by a wave of hospitalizations, and then a wave of deaths, it will be too late for many of our residents,” Bettigole said at the time.

Cases and hospitalizations continued to rise at least through Monday, when the health department reported 82 patients in the hospital with COVID-19 — up nearly 80% from a week earlier — with confirmed cases up 58% over that same span to 224 per day. Those numbers were still a fraction of what the city endured during the wintertime omicron surge.

Bettigole told the Board of Health on Thursday night that hospitalizations had since drifted down to 65.

The restaurant industry had pushed back against the city’s reimposed mask mandate, saying workers would bear the brunt of customer anger over the new rules.

Several businesses and residents filed suit in state court in Pennsylvania seeking to overturn the renewed mandate. The Board of Health’s vote to rescind the mandate came after board members met in private to discuss the lawsuit.

“We were very pleased to see Philadelphia make the correct decision to rescind the mask mandate,” said the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Thomas W King III, who was among those involved in last year’s successful legal challenge to the statewide mask mandate in schools.



Original Source Link

Latest News

Shiba Inu Burn Rate Ignites 3,674% On Election Day, Will SHIB Move With Dogecoin Price To New ATH?

Este artículo también está disponible en español. Shiba Inu (SHIB) recently witnessed a significant increase in its burn rate,...

Harris says she will ‘not concede the fight that fuelled this campaign’

Harris says she will ‘not concede the fight that fuelled this campaign’ Original Source Link

The best note-taking apps for collecting your thoughts and data

These days, we are all dealing with huge amounts of information, from meeting notes to social media, to...

Abortion Measure Loses In Florida After Getting 1 Million More Votes Than Ron DeSantis

Republicans showed what the undercutting of democracy looks like in Florida after a measure to make abortion a...

North Korea launches intercontinental ballistic missile to space, reaches record altitude

North Korea reportedly reached space on Wednesday, Oct. 30 with its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launched in...

Must Read

Rethinking archaeology and place

Editor in chief Nancy Shute discusses efforts of...

Charleston vs Savannah: Which City is Right For You?

You might be thinking about settling in a...
- Advertisement -

You might also likeRELATED
Recommended to you