NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – In view of the falling number of corona infections, the US state of New York is phasing out the mask requirement in closed rooms. “We are not where we were at the beginning of December,” Governor Kathy Hochul said on Wednesday. “New Yorkers did the right thing to weather the winter wave, and we can lift the statewide indoor mask or vaccination requirement starting tomorrow.” Clinics, schools, retirement homes and prisons are excluded from the decision. However, Hochul emphasized that individual districts or cities in the state could insist on the mask requirement in their area of influence.
New York and the US East Coast metropolis of the same name had already reduced most of the corona restrictions in the past few months – but due to the strong wave of infections caused by the omicron variant, the mask requirement indoors was reintroduced almost two months ago. In 2020, New York was the epicenter of the corona pandemic in the USA with many hundreds of deaths every day./scb/DP/stw