A man buys during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on 5th Avenue in New York, February 17, 2021.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
More states are moving to significantly reopen their economies and end their mask mandates, despite pleas from top US officials to tread carefully until more Americans are vaccinated against Covid-19.
Maryland on Tuesday became the youngest state to largely restart its economy when Prime Minister Larry Hogan announced that restaurants, retailers and other businesses would be allowed to reopen from Friday without capacity constraints.
Governors in Texas, Maryland, Mississippi, Connecticut, Arizona, West Virginia and Wyoming have announced similar plans in recent days as the rate of vaccinations accelerates and Covid-19 cases and deaths decline.
Some states are gradually introducing mitigation restrictions. New Jersey and New York jointly announced Wednesday that restaurants in New York City on March 19 will be allowed to reopen at half capacity, up from just 35%.
California has said it intends to reopen its glorious theme parks, outdoor stadiums and ball parks from April 1, albeit on reduced capacity.
Theme parks like Walt Disney’s Disneyland may only allow Golden State residents at first, the health department said. Disney CEO Bob Chapek said in a statement on Tuesday that the company would need time to retire and train employees, with the goal of reopening at the end of April.
The decision to move forward and weaken restrictions has defied warnings from top health officials in the Biden government, urging states to temporarily halt business reopening after the country’s decline in Covid-19 infections began. However, during a press release from the White House Covid-19 on Wednesday, they acknowledged that the daily infections were declining again.
“There are so many critical zippers over the next two months,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said. said the National League of Cities Monday. “How quickly we will vaccinate against whether we are going to have a resurgence again depends on what happens in March and April.”
Full capacity
Wednesday marked the end of Texas’ mandate for the mask nationwide, and its businesses will be allowed to reopen “100%,” Gov. Greg Abbott announced last week, citing a decline in daily infections and the availability of vaccines.
The move has left several retailers and restaurants in Texas, the largest state to date, to relax all restrictions, to decide whether to relax their restrictions or ask customers to continue wearing masks. The Mississippi government, Tate Reeves, lifted the state’s capability on businesses, while last week it also abandoned the state’s masking mandate.
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon announced Monday that the state’s pubs, restaurants, theaters and gyms will be allowed to resume normal operations on March 16, and according to the statement, the state’s most vulnerable residents now have access to the vaccine.
Arizona, West Virginia and Connecticut have also relocated to reopen restaurants, fitness centers and other businesses at full capacity, although the states will maintain their mask requirements. At the end of February, Arkansas removed capacity restrictions on bars, gyms, restaurants and large venues.
Those states are following in Florida’s footsteps when they announced in September that they would lift capacity restrictions at all bars and restaurants.
Some Republicans have no mask requirements
Other Republican leaders outside of Texas and Mississippi have recently removed the major requirements for the entire mask, including Iowa, Mississippi, North Dakota and Montana, while others have announced plans to lift their orders in the coming weeks.
Wyoming Gov. Gordon said the state’s masking mandate would end when its businesses reopened on March 16. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said last week that she would lift her state’s mask requirement from April 9.
“While I am convinced that a mask mandate was the right thing to do, I also respect those who object to it and believe it was a step too far in the government series,” Ivey said at a news conference on Thursday.
However, even people who are vaccinated against the disease should still continue to wear face masks in public and when they meet people who are vulnerable to the disease, according to the new CDC guidelines for vaccinated Americans issued Monday.
“While the new guidance is a positive step, many more people need to be fully vaccinated before anyone can stop taking most COVID-19 precautions,” the CDC said.
US not ‘out of the woods’
The U.S. recorded a daily average of about 57,436 new cases in the past week, a sharp drop compared to the peak of nearly 250,000 daily cases in the U.S. in early January, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
While the decline in daily cases is’ good news’, the US is still battling a disillusioning high number of infections every day and can ‘infections’ again at an unacceptably high level’, said Dr. White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci said Tuesday. .
“The history with this virus has told us that when you start at a level as high as this, which is about 60,000 to 70,000 cases a day, then you are by no means out of the woods,” Fauci said earlier this week with Walensky said. .
In addition, new and highly transmissible variants of the virus, specifically the B.1.1.7 strain first found in the United Kingdom, are the predominant variant in the USA by the end of March.
A virus that spreads faster can lead to more cases, hospitalizations and deaths, public health experts warn and some early data suggest the B.1.1.7 variant could be more deadly. Fauci said the U.S. is now assessing the impact of ‘homemade’ variants, including those believed to have originated in New York.
– Associated Press and Berkeley Lovelace Jr. of CNBC contributed to this report.