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ALBANY – New York will keep its statewide mask mandate in place through Feb. 1, despite a downward trend in COVID-19 cases and growing lack of compliance from defiant Long Island officials, Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Friday.
“I find it phenomenally disappointing that people are willing to play politics with children’s lives,” Hochul said during a Suffolk County-based press conference at the Brookhaven National Lab, when asked if she’ll crack down on several Long Island school districts who are reportedly flouting the rule.
“Schools are safe and why are they safe? Because people have been wearing masks. Kids are wearing masks and they’re adapting to it. Not something we’re going to keep much longer, we know we don’t have to, but this has kept children safe and in a learning environment.”
Hochul said she cannot commit to an expiration date of the rule.
“I’m going to continue to use the element of time and at the right time, assess where we are. When we put this in place, we fully expected that we would no longer have a need for a masked mandate in schools until Nov. 26 when Omicron hit, because we were trending down in a beautiful way with Delta.”
She added: “I’d be negligent. If I said now on a certain date, something’s going to happen.”
The state Health Department issued a mask mandate for all kids and teachers in public and private schools at the end of August, but a surge in the Omicron variant caused Hochul to implement an additional mask requirement for all public spaces, including businesses and schools.
She’s gotten pushback from Nassau’s new County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, who has said he won’t enforce the rule in the county and additionally, issued a countywide mandate saying schools could decide whether or not they want to enforce the regulation.
Hochul has also threatened that the state Education Department could withhold funding from defiant Long Island schools, should they continue to flout the statewide mandate.
“I will tell you about Feb. 1, on Jan. 31. I really do need to wait until that time. Trend is looking good and I’m an optimist, but I saw a very good trend just in early November, and then everything changed,” said Hochul.
Meanwhile, the state reported 28,296 COVID-19 cases on Friday, down from the 90,132 positive cases two weeks ago, on Jan. 7.
“That’s a 66.6 percent drop in two weeks. We have been waiting for this moment.”
Hospitalizations are also continuing a downward trend — hitting 11,016 individuals hospitalized for the virus statewide — and another 154 individuals lost their lives.
“We had 12,000 Almost 13,000 cases just [on] Jan. 12 and now we’re down 1100 to 1100,” said the governor.
“So, we’re watching those very closely.”
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