Hawaii is the only state, along with U.S. territory Puerto Rico, to hold on to mask mandates despite signs that the pandemic is retreating.
Hawaii is the lone U.S. state that requires widespread masking. Even leaders of blue states, who were hawkish on early COVID-19 mitigation measures, have done away with their mandates in some capacity in recent weeks. Hawaii, despite hitting its lowest seven-day average case total since mid-December, has not joined those blue states, which are now in line with the policies of Republican-led states that have avoided mandates and restrictions for months, even before the omicron wave hit and then subsided. Meanwhile, some states never enacted statewide mask mandates to begin with, such as Alaska, Florida, Idaho, and Tennessee.
“I am working with the Department of Health to determine when the time is right for Hawaii to lift the indoor mask mandate,” Gov. David Ige, a Democrat, said last week.
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Under Hawaii’s state rule, masks are always required except when eating and drinking. You should wear a mask whenever you’re indoors, especially near people who don’t live with you, the guidance says.
“Hawaii ranks second in the nation when it comes to COVID-deaths, in part because of the indoor mask requirement and other measures that have proven successful in protecting our community from this potentially deadly virus. We base our decisions on science, with the health and safety of our community as the top priority,” Ige said.
Hawaii, as well as Puerto Rico, took strict precautions against the coronavirus in the early days of its proliferation by imposing school closures, long mandatory quarantine periods, and hurdles for travelers to jump through in order to visit.
In Puerto Rico, the largest U.S. territory, Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia signed several executive orders recently that are slated to go into effect this week. The island endured the worst of the omicron surge in early January and is still recovering.
“Given the rebound in cases caused by the omicron variant that we have had in Puerto Rico and other parts of the world, I took restrictive measures to help us counteract the virus,” Pierluisi said last week.
These include a booster shot mandate for many people, including employees of child care centers, gyms, beauty salons, beauty parlors, barbershops, spas, and casinos. Another executive order maintains a 75% capacity restriction for restaurants and theaters until March 31. The mask mandate will not change.
“We are currently seeing a sustained reduction in statistics regarding the positivity rate and hospitalizations, which presents us with a better picture. Even so, it is not yet time to let our guard down; we have to continue protecting ourselves against this virus and maintain the necessary precautionary measures,” Pierluisi said.
Still, the myriad effects on mobility and tourism have rocked both islands’ economies.
Hawaii has some of the highest unemployment rates in the country, having jumped to Great Depression levels since the advent of pandemic shutdowns in early 2020. Ige was also the first to require out-of-state visitors to enter a mandatory 14-day quarantine. That period was decreased to five days last month. Now, anyone who has been fully vaccinated — two shots of Moderna or Pfizer or one Johnson & Johnson shot — or can provide a negative pre-flight test can avoid the mandatory five-day quarantine.
In Puerto Rico, a leadership vacuum followed by the 2019 resignation of Gov. Ricardo Rossello and three health secretaries in March 2020 alone has hindered the island’s disaster response communication strategy. An ongoing socioeconomic calamity caused by high unemployment and the island’s roughly $120 billion debt has worsened the country’s recovery.
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Still, the prognoses for Hawaii and Puerto Rico are better now and are expected to stay this way provided another variant like the omicron or delta strains doesn’t emerge to foil national progress. In Hawaii, cases and hospitalizations have declined 69% and 46%, respectively, over the past two weeks, according to New York Times data. Average weekly cases there are down to 346 from a high of nearly 5,000 per day. In Puerto Rico, cases are down 60% while hospitalizations have fallen 59%. There, average daily cases have hit 450, down from the peak of 10,000 on Jan. 4.
