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 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 every day life.
Compulsory face-coverings have proven especially fraught and
politically heated in public education. Four of the states
announcing action on Monday - California being the exception - 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.
Murphy later told a news conference that individual school districts
and private childcare providers would still be allowed to maintain
and enforce mask mandates.
"We will not tolerate anyone being put down by exercising their
choice to mask up," Murphy said.
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.
"We're in a much better place than we were several weeks ago,"
Carney wrote on Twitter, but added: "The virus still poses a risk of
serious illness, particularly among those who are not up to date on
their vaccinations."
Oregon health officials likewise announced that general mask
requirements for indoor public places, including schools, would
remain in effect for nearly two more months before they are lifted
on March 31, when hundreds fewer state residents are expected to be
hospitalized with COVID-19.
SHIFTING POLICIES
California Governor Gavin Newsom pointed to a 65% statewide decline
in case rates since the height of the Omicron surge, which prompted
mandatory face coverings for everyone - vaccinated or not - in all
indoor public spaces in mid-December.
Under the latest policy shift in the nation's most populous state,
indoor masking will cease to be compulsory for vaccinated people
from Feb. 16, except in such settings as public transit, hospitals
and nursing homes.
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 The unvaccinated will still be required to mask
up at all indoor public places. And local
masking policies imposed county-by-county, as in
Los Angeles and much of the San Francisco Bay
area, will remain in effect.
The latest change in California does not
immediately apply to its schools but education
and public health officials are working on
revised indoor masking rules for students and
teachers in the weeks ahead, state officials
said.
President Joe Biden met Murphy and 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.
While U.S. coronavirus deaths are still on the rise
- surpassing 900,000 on Friday - the daily number of lives lost has
begun to level off https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-coronavirus-deaths-surpass-900000-driven-part-by-omicron-surge-2022-02-05,
according to data collected by Reuters. During each surge in the
pandemic, the rise in the death toll trails the increase in new
cases.
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 government-imposed requirement to
individual decision. It helps to preserve public health authority
for when it's needed again," she wrote on Twitter.
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. An average of 180 schools were
not offering in-person instruction last week nationwide, down from
some 6,000 on Jan. 14.
(Reporting by Rami Ayyub in Washington; Additional reporting by
Susan Heavey in Washington, Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, Barbara
Goldberg in New York and Brendan O'Brien in Chicago; Editing by
Aurora Ellis and Lincoln Feast)
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