By: Mario Mancini
The latest news when it comes to Covid-19 and mask mandates is that preschoolers, aged two to four, will no longer be required to wear masks. Many parents are concerned as there are only weeks left to the school year and would prefer to keep their children as safe as possible.
“The mayor (Mayor Adams) said at the very beginning that the reason that they had to keep wearing masks was because the vaccine was ineligible for them and that didn’t magically change for Monday,” Tamara Bedorssian, an Upper West Side mother of a 4–year-old boy, told The New York Post on Sunday.
“So the fact that they lifted [now] is just kind of an insult to all parents,” said Bedrossian.
New Yorkers will still need to mask up on public transit — including trains, buses, taxis and other ride-share services — regardless of vaccination status.
Despite the federal government in April dropping mask mandates for airports, planes and other transportation modes after a federal judge’s ruling, Gov. Kathy Hochul opted to keep it for public transit in New York State, reports The New Post.
Sam Raskin writes, “Governor Hochul on Thursday hinted that a “conversation” about ending the public transit mask-wearing regulation would happen “soon,” while declining to provide a specific time frame for pulling the trigger”.
The vaccine requirements have also been eased in New York City. New Yorkers no longer have to provide proof of vaccination for indoor venues such as restaurants, gyms and movie theaters after Mayor Adams scrapped the “Key to NYC” program.
The proof-of-vaccination program was introduced by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in late summer 2021 amid a surge of infections.
Last week, officials also announced that MTA and other state agencies will no longer require employees who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 to test weekly for the virus.
Mayor Adams has so far maintained Big Apple policies set by his predecessor that dictate both municipal and private-sector employees must be vaccinated against COVID-19 to enter their workplaces. Oddly enough, employers are not being inspected for compliance, so one must wonder if in a matter of time these rules will be phased out
The city defines “workplaces” as any location — including a vehicle — where a person works in the presence of at least one other person. Vaccine mandates for the workplace has helped keep numbers low. Recently, the positivity rate has been as low as 3% in April. The current hospitalization rate for New York City has been 57 persons hospitalized each week with an average of eight Covid-19 deaths per day.