In view of falling numbers of corona infections, the US state of New York is phasing out the obligation to wear masks in enclosed spaces. “We are not where we were at the beginning of December,” Governor Kathy Hochul said on Wednesday. “New Yorkers have done the right thing to survive the winter wave, and we can lift the nationwide mask or vaccination requirement for indoor areas from tomorrow”. Excluded from the decision are, among other things, clinics, schools, retirement homes and prisons. However, Hochul stressed that individual districts or cities in the state could insist on the mask requirement in their area of influence.
New York and the US East coast metropolis of the same name had already reduced most corona restrictions in recent months – but due to the strong wave of infections caused by the Omikron variant, the mask requirement indoors had been reintroduced almost two months ago. New York was the epicenter of the corona pandemic in the USA in 2020 with many hundreds of deaths every day.
–
