Following the updated CDC guidance that relaxed Covid-19 masking recommendations, California, Oregon, and Washington state will drop their mask mandates for K-12 public schools in mid-March.
“With declining case rates and hospitalizations across the West, California, Oregon and Washington are moving together to update their masking guidance,” the governors announced in a joint statement Monday.
The new directive will also apply to most indoor settings in all three states in addition to schools.
Many Republican-controlled states lifted their mask requirements months ago.
Now that Covid transmission and hospitalization rates are decreasing nationwide, and the CDC is giving the green light, Democratic-dominated states on the east and west coasts are following suit ahead of President Biden’s Tuesday State of the Union address.
Many Republicans have argued that the science hasn’t changed, but public opinion on the matter and polling on party performance has, prompting the shift.
“Two years ago today, we identified Oregon’s first case of COVID-19,” Oregon Governor Kate Brown said in the statement. “On the West Coast our communities and economies are linked. Together, as we continue to recover from the Omicron surge, we will build resiliency and prepare for the next variant and the next pandemic.”
In California, masks will no longer be required but “strongly recommended” in indoor settings regardless of vaccination status starting Tuesday. The policy will be effective in schools and childcare facilities starting March 12, the statement said.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York Governor Kathy Hochul recently nixed mask mandates for indoor settings and public schools. Adams also dropped the vaccine passport for indoor recreational venues in the city starting early March.
The inter-state movement to ease pandemic restrictions suggests a growing consensus that Covid-19 is becoming endemic, and that citizens must learn to live with it to avoid further disrupting economies, livelihoods, and children, who many parents claim have born the brunt of restrictions in the form of academic and social regression.