Things To Think About As We Approach The End Of The Mask Mandate

A local county health officer says the end of the indoor mask mandate this week doesn’t mean it’s time to trash your masks.

New COVID numbers are down across the spectrum, with cases down 90% since early January in Snohomish County.

When the clock strikes midnight March 12^th, you’ll still need a mask if you hop a bus or plane, or if you visit your grandma at a hospital or nursing home, and while masks won’t be required in most schools, Snohomish County Health Officer, Doctor Chris Spitters, says they’re still recommended.

Spitters says he’s not worried about people getting lax, but he says we all need to watch for “signals from nature that it’s time to put them back on, and that,” he says, “is the moment where laxity could prove a grave danger to ourselves and the health care system and other essential societal functions.  You know, it’s not a wholesale elimination of masking but a targeted relief from it.”

Spitters says in the meantime, we should still consider vulnerable people and groups, and we should feel free to wear masks if we so choose.

Meanwhile, a leader in our state’s hospitality industry says the end of the indoor mask mandate has given business owners a sense of hope, but he says those owners will also watch how things go after Friday.

Many who own or work at hotels, restaurants and bars will likely breathe a sigh of relief that they don’t have to be the mask enforcers anymore, but Washington Hospitality Association president, Anthony Anton, says there is a debate among some on whether they should have their own mask rules.  Anton also says they’ll want to see how the first week pans out.  “Some are trying to really get their employees to say where their employees are at.  ‘What do you want?,’”  Anton says, “Some are worried if they do it, they’ll create a bigger negative, or where do their customers fit?  So, I think the dialogue is going to occur right through this weekend.”

Anton says he can’t foresee any business discouraging employees from masking because with a worker shortage, they don’t want to push them away.

He also says whether it means more customers coming out depends on the region, but that the big excitement is over the likelihood that more people will feel comfortable travelling around the state as the restrictions ease.