By RACHEL LA CORTE
Associated Press
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Washington’s statewide indoor mask mandate, one of the few left in the country, will lift in most places on March 21, including at schools and child care facilities, Gov. Jay Inslee said.
And starting on March 1, vaccine verification or proof of a negative COVID-19 test will no longer be required for attendance at large events.
Masks will still be required in health care settings, like hospitals and doctor’s offices, and at long-term care facilities, prisons, and jails. They will also still be required on public transit, taxis, ride-hail vehicles, and school buses.
Private businesses and local governments that want to require masks for employees, customers, or residents will still be able to do so.
Inslee said that the late March date to lift the mask mandate is based on hospital admission projections. During a Feb. 17 news conference, he showed a chart that shows hospitalizations for COVID-19 are about 20 per 100,000 people. His goal is to get that number down to 5, which is when he said hospitals can return to more normal operations.
“To those who think maybe it should end earlier, all I can tell you is we lost 1,000 people in January to this disease,” he said. “And when we make decisions, it seems to me we ought to have a recognition of how dangerous and deadly this disease still is after this period of time.”
Like the rest of the country, Washington—which first imposed a statewide mask mandate in June 2020—has seen a steady decline in both cases and hospitalizations since the height of the omicron surge last month.
Last May, the state changed its requirements to align with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which allowed vaccinated people to go without a mask indoors, but that exception was rescinded in August 2021 after the delta variant emerged. A face covering requirement for outdoor events of 500 or more people was imposed in September, but that mandate was lifted on Feb. 18.
Also that day, non-urgent procedures—which have been on hold since last month due to concerns about hospital capacity—can resume, since the governor decided to not extend the ban beyond the set four weeks.
Democratic governors in several states have already ended or set dates to end masking rules in public places or in schools. New Mexico’s governor announced on Feb. 17 that the statewide mask mandate there was being lifted, effective immediately, leaving Hawaii as the only state that has not indicated when its indoor mask mandates may be rescinded.