A man goes shopping, during the coronavirus disease pandemic (COVID-19), on 5th Avenue in New York, on February 17, 2021.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
More states are moving to significantly reopen their economies and end their masking mandates, despite calls from senior US officials to act carefully until more Americans are vaccinated against Covid-19.
On Tuesday, Maryland became the last state to widely restart its economy when Governor Larry Hogan announced that restaurants, retailers and other businesses will be able to reopen without capacity restrictions starting on Friday.
The governors of Texas, Maryland, Mississippi, Connecticut, Arizona, West Virginia and Wyoming have announced similar plans in the past few days, as the rate of inoculation accelerates and the cases and deaths of Covid-19 slow down.
Some states are easing restrictions more gradually. New Jersey and New York jointly announced on Wednesday that restaurants in New York City will be able to reopen at half capacity, down from just 35%, as of March 19.
California said it plans to reopen its illustrious theme parks, outdoor stadiums and sports parks as of April 1, although with reduced capacity.
Theme parks such as Disneyland at Walt Disney will only be allowed to admit only Golden State residents at the beginning, the state health department said. Disney CEO Bob Chapek said in a statement on Tuesday that the company will need time to bring back and train dismissed employees, with the aim of reopening in late April.
The decision to move forward and loosen restrictions challenged warnings from top public health officials in the Biden administration, who asked states to temporarily suspend the reopening of businesses after the country’s decline in Covid-19 infections began to stagnate. However, they acknowledged at a Covid-19 press conference at the White House on Wednesday that daily infections appear to be decreasing once again.
“There is so much that is critical in the next two months,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the National League of Cities on Monday. “How quickly we vaccinate and whether we have another wave really depends on what happens in March and April.”
Total capacity
Wednesday marked the end of Texas’s state mask mandate, and its business will be allowed to reopen “100%,” Governor Greg Abbott announced last week, citing a decline in daily infections and the availability of vaccines.
The move has prompted several retailers and restaurants in Texas, the largest state to date, to relax all restrictions, decide whether to relax their restrictions or ask customers to continue wearing masks. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves lifted the state’s capacity restrictions on companies and, at the same time, removed the mandate from the state mask last week.
Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon announced on Monday that the state’s bars, restaurants, theaters and gyms will be allowed to resume “normal operations” from March 16, saying the state’s most vulnerable residents now have access to the vaccine, according to a statement.
Arizona, West Virginia and Connecticut have also moved to reopen restaurants, fitness centers and other businesses at full capacity, although states maintain their mask requirements. In late February, Arkansas removed capacity restrictions at bars, gyms, restaurants and large venues.
These states follow in Florida’s footsteps when it announced in early September that it would lift capacity restrictions on all bars and restaurants.
Some republican nix mask requirements
Other Republican state leaders in addition to Texas and Mississippi recently removed mask requirements across the state, including Iowa, Mississippi, North Dakota and Montana, while others announced plans to suspend their orders in the coming weeks.
Governor Gordon of Wyoming said the term for the state’s mask will end when its business reopens on March 16. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey said last week that she would withdraw the requirement for the state’s mask starting April 9.
“While I am convinced that a masked mandate was the right thing to do, I also respect those who oppose and believe that this was a step too far in the government’s exaggeration,” Ivey told a news conference on Thursday.
However, even people vaccinated against the disease must continue to use facial coverings in public and when meeting with people who may be vulnerable to the disease, according to the CDC’s new guideline for inoculated Americans released on Monday.
“Although the new guideline is a positive step, many more people need to be fully vaccinated before everyone can stop taking most of the COVID-19 precautions,” said the CDC.
USA not ‘out of the woods’
The US recorded a daily average of about 57,436 new cases in the last week, a sharp drop compared to the peak of almost 250,000 daily cases in the US in early January, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Although the decline in daily cases “is good news”, the United States is still battling a high number of infections every day and infections “may stabilize again at an unacceptably high level,” said the House’s chief medical advisor. Branca, Dr. Anthony Fauci, on Tuesday.
“The history with this virus tells us that when you start to stagnate at a level as high as this, which is about 60,000 to 70,000 cases a day, then you are by no means out of danger,” said Fauci next to Walensky earlier this week.
In addition, new and highly transmissible variants of the virus, specifically the B.1.1.7 strain first found in the United Kingdom, are expected to become the predominant variant in the United States by the end of March.
A more rapidly spreading virus can lead to more cases, hospitalizations and deaths, warn public health experts, and some initial data indicates that variant B.1.1.7 may be more deadly. Fauci said the United States is now assessing the impact of “home” variants, including the one believed to have originated in New York.
– CNBC’s Associated Press and Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.