New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu will not be renewing the statewide mask mandate set to expire Friday.
Sununu cited a downturn in coronavirus deaths, “manageable” levels of hospitalizations, and increased vaccination efforts for his Thursday decision. His order, however, “will not limit or prevent the ability of private businesses or cities and towns from requiring masks, as was the case beforehand,” he said.
“New Hampshire residents know how to keep ourselves and our neighbors safe without a state mandate — just as we did before the winter surge,” the Republican governor wrote.
The state has experienced a 23% increase in COVID-19 positives and a 19% decrease in deaths over the past two weeks as hospitalizations from the virus dropped 43%. Twenty-seven percent of New Hampshire’s population has received both vaccine doses, while 56% of its residents have been given at least one shot.
ALABAMA REPLACES MASK MANDATE WITH ‘SAFER APART ORDER’
On April 7, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey allowed her state’s face covering ordinance to expire following a sharp downturn in cases. The governor instead placed her constituents under a “Safer Apart” phase, which is a “greatly slimmed down” version of previous health guidance.
“Because of your personal responsibility & strong adherence to safety protocols, we’re finally rounding the corner,” Ivey wrote at the time. “We aren’t there yet, but we’re in the home stretch.”
Several states have lifted mask mandates since the onset of the pandemic, including Arkansas, Indiana, Texas, Wisconsin, Montana, and Wyoming. The moves run counter to guidance from President Joe Biden, who has called the easing of restrictions “reckless behavior.”
“I’m reiterating my call for every governor, mayor, and local leader to maintain and reinstate the mask mandate,” Biden said March 29. “Please, this is not politics.”
“Our progress on vaccination is a stunning example that there is nothing, nothing this country cannot do if we put our minds to it, and we do it together,” he said. “But I’ve also said, I will always give it to you straight, straight from the shoulder. Our work is far from over. The war against COVID-19 is far from over.”
Outlier states such as Michigan that have been experiencing a precipitous increase in COVID-19 totals have been a cause for alarm for the White House and prominent medical authorities. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky on Monday called for Michigan to “close things down” amid its surge.
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“When you have an acute situation, [an] extraordinary number of cases, like we have in Michigan, the answer is not necessarily to give vaccine,” Walensky said during a COVID-19 response briefing. “In fact, we know that the vaccine will have a delayed response. The answer to that is to really close things down, to go back to our basics, to go back to where we were last spring, last summer.”
