Alabama Governor Kay Ivey will give a press conference on Thursday at 11 am to provide an update on the state’s mask order. The press conference takes place the day before the health order that requires the use of facial covers in public places expires.
Ivey did not say whether he planned to extend the request, which was put into effect for the first time in July, during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
Earlier in the day, an Ivey spokesman indicated that she “preferred personal responsibility to government mandates”.
“Governor Ivey has made it clear all along that she prefers personal responsibility to government mandates. We are optimistic that our state is moving in the right direction and we still have a lot of work to do, ”Ivey’s spokeswoman, Gina Maiola, told AL.com.
Unless extended by Ivey, the request for facial coverage in public areas and schools is set to expire on Friday at 5pm. The request was extended several times, as the number of COVID cases and hospitalizations increased in the state.
These numbers have dropped in recent weeks, despite the increase in the number of vaccinations. As of today, Alabama has administered 944,795 coronavirus vaccines and those numbers are expected to continue to rise, as the Johnson and Johnson one-dose vaccine is expected to arrive in the state.
If Ivey allows the mask order to expire, it will be against the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control.
“Things are fragile,” Rochelle Walensky, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a meeting at the White House last week, adding that the drop in cases “may be stagnating” in a “very worrying change in the trajectory”.
“Now is not the time to relax restrictions,” she added.
To date, Alabama has reported 497,154 cases of coronavirus with 10,029 deaths. Of these cases, it is assumed that 285,130 have recovered. There are currently 631 people hospitalized in Alabama with the virus.
According to the CDC, 663,000 Alabamians, or 13.5 percent, received at least the first dose of the vaccine.
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Too early to close Alabama’s COVID mask order, says UAB expert
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