The Biden administration has refused to join the expanding number of Democratic governors who have relaxed mask laws in their states.
Govs. In some of the bluest states, Phil Murphy, D-N.J., John Carney, D-Del., Ned Lamont, D-Conn., Kate Brown, D-Ore., and Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., have announced the easing of mask prohibitions. Govs. Kathy Hochul, D-New York, and J.B. Walsh, D-Massachusetts Pritzker, a Democrat from Illinois, was poised to do the same on Wednesday.
Despite the omicron variant’s diminishing effect, no such declaration was expected from the White House or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told Reuters on Tuesday that the time is not right to repeal mask laws in schools and other public places.
A bipartisan group of governors meeting with Biden, on the other hand, expressed their desire for a return to normalcy and the end of the pandemic.
On Tuesday, ten of Virginia’s 21 state Senate Democrats joined Republicans to pass an amendment to a bill allowing parents to opt out of school mask rules by July.
The public’s support for mandatory mask and vaccine laws is dwindling. According to a recent Monmouth University poll, 70% of Americans feel that it’s time to accept that COVID is here to stay and that we should just go on with our lives.
It isn’t simply Republicans who are leading the charge. A new advocacy group called Urgency of Normal, which is made up of well-known doctors, is also advocating for a return to normalcy.
