D.C.

will no longer require masks in many public

settings, Bowser announces

Washington’s local mask mandate, one of the strictest in the nation since late
July, will relax greatly beginning Monday, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) announced
Tuesday.
The District had required residents to wear masks in most indoor settings since
the delta variant caused coronavirus case counts to rise over the summer. On
Tuesday, Bowser said that coronavirus vaccines are working: While case rates
remain stubbornly above an average of 10 new cases per day for every 100,000
residents, vaccines are preventing most people who catch the virus from needing
hospitalization
That means it’s time to let residents choose whether to wear masks in their office
buildings, retail stores and many other settings, Bowser said. Local businesses can
still choose to require masks, but it will not be legally required.
Local regulations will still require masks in some settings, including Metro trains
and buses, ride-share cars, some government buildings and public schools.
Bowser said she will issue a mayoral order to bring the changes into effect, but
had not yet signed the order when she announced the changes at a news
conference Tuesday.
In recent weeks, some residents and business owners had questioned the
District’s reasoning for maintaining a strict indoor mask requirement. While some
jurisdictions, including neighboring Montgomery County, set measuring sticks for
when they would lift mask requirements, based on data like coronavirus case
rates or portion of the population vaccinated, the District had no set metrics, and
repeatedly told business owners and reporters who asked that epidemiologists in
the D.C. Health department would know when it was time to change the
rules.Some District workers who have in-person jobs indoors, interacting with the
public, said over the weekend that they appreciate that the city has required
masks longer than many surrounding jurisdictions and were not eager for Bowser
to relax the rules. Some parents of children too young to get vaccinated had also
pleaded with local officials to keep the mask rules in place to protect
unvaccinated people.
Henry River, a janitor, wears a mask all day at work. “I have no problem with it,”
he said. Even though he’s vaccinated, he worries about people going unmasked in
some places he visits where he believes “there’s no air circulation.” He’ll feel
more comfortable, he said, once he knows more people are vaccinated. “Some
requirements help at least.”
Bellamy Bell, a grocery store worker, also said he hopes the mask mandate stays
in place until “whenever they get solid evidence” that coronavirus cases are much
scarcer than they are now. “I think it should be a requirement. You’re around
other people. You’re out in public. It’s a crowded area. There are a lot of people.”
Bowser said Monday that she was getting ready to allow businesses to make their
own mask rules “rather than the government telling you what you need to do to
keep safe.”
We are encouraged by the numbers that have opted into vaccination now, some
of them encouraged by mandates,” she said, though added that the winter may
bring an increase in coronavirus cases. “There may even be an increase in cases …
but what we haven’t seen is an increase in hospitalizations and deaths. That is the
promise of vaccination.”
Grocery store worker Katherine Scott was eager for the requirement to end, so
much so that she had been repeatedly emailing her D.C. Council member’s office
and the local health department, asking what the metrics are for the end of the
mandate.
She spent the pandemic working full time in a grocery store in New York, and was
elated when the state stopped requiring masks indoors and she could take hers
off. Then she moved to the District in September, and had to put her mask on
again.
Since she got vaccinated, “I feel 100 percent safe. Everything I’ve read, from the
CDC and any major newspaper, says the vaccine works — your risk of death goes
to just about zilch,” Scott said. “We’re not requiring everyone to get in a car and
wear a bike helmet. That’s kind of how the mask feels. Essentially you’re telling
me I need to wear it, but I’m fully vaccinated. I’m doing the extremely safe thing.
It’s frustrating.”
She went to D.C.’s 9:30 Club recently, and was irritated that staff told her to put
her mask back on between sips of her beer. Thinking of the “glorious” rave that
she attended in Manhattan, where attendees showed their vaccine cards at the
door then partied without masks inside, Scott left the D.C. club early. “I just want
to go to another city where they’re handling this better,” she thought.