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Mayor Eric Adams insisted Friday he wants to try to drop his toddler mask mandate “within a week” — as furious parents protested outside City Hall with huge inflatable babies, demanding an end to the controversial rule.
“I want to drop it,” Adams told 1010 WINS. “I’m hoping that we can do it within a week or so.”
Hizzoner, who has been promising for weeks to end the mandate requiring kids under 4 to mask up in NYC schools and day cares, doubled down on prior statements that any changes to his mandate will depend on COVID-19 cases and whether the BA.2 Omicron subvariant is causing infections to spike.
“We were going to announce it on the Monday that passed, but as you know this new variant is increasing a little. We believe it’s going to stabilize and we will be able to remove the masks for those under 5,” Adams said.
“I feel more urgent about dropping that mandate more than others. Trust me when I tell you I want you to see the faces of our children,” he added.
“I’m totally at the mercy of my health team, they stated that we’re continuing to look at the numbers, once they are comfortable and will give me the orders, I’m champing at the bit to get it done.”
Adams’ latest comments came as several parents staged protests outside City Hall and in Times Square on Friday, accusing the Mayor of backtracking on his plans to axe the toddler mandate.
Protesters from the NYC Parents for Mask Choice group donned inflatable baby costumes and brandished signs that read “NYC toddlers have been masked for half their lives” and “Toddlers have lowest risk for COVID, but highest risk of developmental delays.”
“The excuse the mayor keeps giving is New York City is different from any other place. He keeps saying New York is unique. The only thing making us unique right now is that we are the only city in the world mandating masks for toddlers,” Tara Murphy, who has two children aged 6 and 4, told The Post.
“We are tired of the maybes. We want it now,” she said of Adams’ stance on his mandate.
Luba Greeder, a trained physician and mom to three children under 6, wasn’t convinced the Mayor would drop the mandate within a week.
“I will believe it when I see it,” she said. “We have lost our trust. The mayor keeps making excuses. He pointed to the density of our city as a reason behind this mandate. The density in the classroom is not any different in New York City than it is in Westchester or Ireland or London or Paris.”
Lexi Kasper, a mom and ER nurse, slammed Adams for attending public events maskless while her toddler was forced to don a face covering.
“It’s been demoralizing for parents of toddlers when knowing that all the other kids, vaccinated or not, can go to school without a mask and the mayor can gallivant around the city in indoor nightclubs, he can do all kinds of indoor events without a mask,” she told The Post from outside City Hall.
Kasper added she was hesitant about putting her toddler daughter into school just because of the mandate.
“New York City is an outlier. Kids in Long Island, kids in Westchester, kids all over the state can unmask and New York City, they’re holding on to this,” she said.
“We have been patient, we have been waiting, but it’s just at this point it doesn’t make any sense. It’s frustrating. It doesn’t make … sense to be this unjust to 2- to 4-year-old kids.”
Adams had first promised on March 22 to end the mask mandate for those under 4 barring an increase in COVID cases. It came after he had earlier dropped a similar order for youngsters age 5 and older following Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision to rescind the state’s mask mandates for everyone.
Last week, a Staten Island judge lifted mask mandates for toddlers citywide, but Adams said City Hall was appealing the decision because the city’s overall positivity rate had climbed to 2.67 percent from the rolling monthly average of 2.33 percent.
The mayor has faced increasing backlash over his decision to keep the toddler mask mandate and was confronted by an angry mom Monday when she stormed an unrelated press conference.
Daniela Jampel, who was also a Law Department staffer, had accused Adams of reneging on his promise to rescind the mandate, saying he “pulled the rug out from under” parents.
It later emerged that Jampel had been fired by the city shortly after the confrontation — but Adams insisted he had no role in terminating her.
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