Incoming Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said Tuesday that he will order the county Health Department not to enforce New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s latest mask-wearing order in closed public places. He insisted that it was not necessary there.
“We are not in crisis here in Nassau County,” Bruce Blakeman said at a morning news conference, reported Newsday. The former Republican city and county legislator will become county executive on January 1, after winning a surprising victory last month over incumbent Laura Curran.
The press conference follows a statement released Monday in which Blakeman said 97% of adults in the county had at least one dose of the vaccine, that hospitals had adequate capacity, and that there was no need.
Nassau County’s positivity rate is 7%, according to the latest state data, with nearly 800 new infections per day.
Statewide, any business that does not have a vaccination policy will be required to require that all indoors wear masks while indoors. Hochul ordered the change after an increase in COVID cases and hospitalizations, returning New York to the days when the pandemic was at its peak.
He said Tuesday that new cases in the state have risen 70% since Thanksgiving and defended the mask-wearing mandate, saying “we are not doing this to win any popularity contests.”
But Blakeman is not the only county executive to reject the measure. Rockland County Executive Ed Day this week said his Health Department does not have the manpower to enforce the new rules.
Putnam County also said it will not enforce what it called the governor’s “so-called mandate,” and county executive MaryEllen Odell said the governor’s office did not consult the counties before issuing the order.
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