Covid cases are on the rise in Philadelphia and have passed the threshold set by the city guidelines that require masks indoors.
It makes Philadelphia the first major American city to reinstate an indoor mask mandate. Covid cases jumped up more than 50 percent in a mere 10 days.
Sharp increases in Covid infections led Philadelphia’s top health official to say that she wants to stall a potential new wave that is driven by the Omicron sub-variant BA.2.
Philadelphia health commissioner Dr. Cheryl Bettigole said that the wave is being driven by BA.2, which is highly transmissible. The Omicron cousin has spread rapidly throughout both Europe and Asia, and recently spread across America as well, now becoming the most dominant strain in the U.S. in recent weeks.
Bettigole said that if Philadelphia fails to act now, knowing that waves of infections mean an incoming wave of hospitalizations, and then waves of death, it will be too late for many citizens. She said that this is the chance to get ahead of the Covid pandemic’s next wave, and therefore people need to wear masks inside until there is more information about how severe BA.2 is.
The mask mandate will be enforced by health inspectors starting from April 18. The last mask mandate was ended in the city on March 2.
In February and March, most states and cities across the nation dropped mask mandates, following guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC updated guidelines a few weeks ago, which placed less of a focus on case numbers and put more of a focus on hospitalization numbers.
Bettigole said she wished it they did not have to reinstate the mask mandate again, but that the city is concerned about the most vulnerable citizens, and therefore it is necessary.
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