NYC Delays Plan to End School Mask Rule for Children Under 5

(Bloomberg) -- New York City delayed a plan to remove the mask mandate in city schools and day-care centers for children under age 5, saying cases of Covid-19 are rising again.

City Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan said at a briefing Friday that it was likely New York would move to a higher risk level. Mayor Eric Adams said March 22 that he planned to make masks optional for the youngest school kids on April 4 if infections continued to remain low.

“Cases are definitively rising, and it has gotten our attention,” Vasan said.

The announcement came on the same day a Staten Island judge ordered an end of the mask mandate for children under 5. Adams said the city would appeal the ruling and ask for a stay to allow the requirement to continue.

The delay occurs as a new omicron subvariant, BA.2, is continuing to gain ground throughout the U.S. Vasan said last month that cases would likely rise again in coming weeks because BA.2 is more transmissible than the original strain of omicron.

City officials didn't give an exact date on when the end of the mandate would be reconsidered, saying they will continue to evaluate Covid data daily. New York bases its risk level on city data, as well as guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which looks at three metrics when classifying a community as low, medium or high -- new Covid hospital admissions per 100,000 population in the past seven days, the percentage of staffed inpatient beds occupied by Covid patients, and total new cases per 100,000 in the past seven days.

“That day is coming for your children, but for now we want to keep an eye on this latest uptick,” Vasan said.

Masks will continue to be optional for K-12 schools, the city said, noting that children over 5 are eligible to be vaccinated, which reduces the risk of serious health consequences. The health commissioner said the city is strongly recommending all New Yorkers wear masks in crowded indoor settings and get vaccinated to prepare for potential case surges.

Lifting the mandate of young kids would eliminate all city requirements for face coverings, and it follows months of heavy criticism from parents and other community members who said it was doing harm to children. The mayor has made a return to normalcy after two years of the pandemic a priority in his first three months in office.