Effective Monday, the state’s indoor mask requirement is back.
Governor Kathy Hochul said Friday that because a surge in the number of COVID cases, masks are now required in all indoor public places unless they require everyone to be vaccinated; businesses cannot mix and match mask and vaccination requirements.
The mask requirement measure will be reevaluated January 15.
“I have to say, I’ve been warning about this for months,” Governor Hochul said Friday. “We shouldn’t have reached this point.”
Since Thanksgiving, the state’s seven-day average has increased 58 percent and hospitalizations have increased by 43 percent, a frustrated Governor Hochul said Tuesday--Friday, those numbers were 43 and 29 percent—and a half-dozen North Country counties have declared a state of emergency because of a lack of hospital beds.
Schoharie County reported 20 new COVID cases Monday—and one death—with an 8.8 percent seven-day positivity rate—and 184 cases in schools.
The Centers for Disease Control report 181 new cases here over a seven-day period and three new hospital admissions from COVID.
Some counties—including Montgomery, Fulton, Madison, and Saratoga--have said they won’t enforce the mask mandate because they lack the resources and Governor Hochul said Monday that while violators could be fined up to $1,00, she expects them to be largely self-enforced.
The state’s previous mask mandate was lifted in June.
“The people in New York City are doing a good job,” Governor Hochul said Friday, “but the rest of the state has to wake up.”
Tuesday marked a year since the first New Yorker received a COVID vaccine—which Governor Hochul said remains her focus.
“Vaccines have always been our ticket out,” she said, and holiday clinics have been scheduled throughout the state.
“If 100 percent of New Yorkers had done this, this would be a very, very different situation. This is a crisis of the unvaccinated. This did not have to be the case after one year.”
Statewide, 70 percent of New Yorkers are fully vaccinated—still just a two percent increase since Thanksgiving, Governor Hochul said.
In Schoharie County, 54.1 percent of those eligible are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control.