Governor Kathy Hochul is not budging on lifting mask mandates as coronavirus continues to tick up in New York State. Despite a federal judge striking down the mask requirement for planes trains and buses, Governor Hochul is opting to keep the mandate for public transportation systems in New York State.
“If we hadn’t seen these two variants, I suspect we would have been able to say goodbye to masks in all settings but we watch for variants, they come and now we are starting to see cases and hospitalizations go up.”
The number of new cases has risen to on average 40 cases per 100-thousand residents. That’s still far below the winter surge peak when it was 461 cases per 100 thousand in the state.