New Jersey, Connecticut, Others to Ease Mask Mandates

Officials in New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, California and Oregon said on Monday they will lift indoor mask mandates for schools and other public places in the coming weeks.

The officials sought a return to normalcy as soaring COVID-19 infections fueled by the Omicron variant abate.

The changes signal a growing inclination by political leaders in those states, all led by Democrats, to take pandemic-weary residents off an emergency footing and shift toward policies that treat the virus as part of everyday life.

Four of the states announcing action on Monday also set hard deadlines for ending mask mandates in schools.

Republican leaders in some states, including Florida and Texas, have banned mask mandates in schools, while Democrats have generally encouraged the policy to help stall new infections.

In New Jersey, where the number of new cases has decreased over the past two weeks, Governor Phil Murphy announced the state would lift its school mask mandate on March 7.

“Balancing public health with getting back to some semblance of normalcy is not easy. But we can responsibly take this step due to declining COVID numbers and growth in vaccinations,” Murphy wrote on Twitter.

Connecticut Governor, Ned Lamont said his state would lift its mask mandate on Feb. 28, and Delaware’s John Carney announced the state’s school mask mandate would end on March 31.

President Joe Biden met Murphy and the other U.S. governors last week at the White House, where the state leaders expressed a desire to return to a sense of normalcy nearly two years after the pandemic forced many schools to switch to online learning and later to institute mask policies.

Dr. Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University and Baltimore’s former health commissioner, said lifting mask mandates was the right step.

It marks a needed shift from the government-imposed requirement to individual decision. It helps to preserve public health authority for when it’s needed again,” she added.

As masking policies shift, many school districts have returned to in-person learning in recent weeks, according to Burbio.com, a site that collects school calendar data.