PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The City of Philadelphia is lifting its indoor mask-wearing mandate after 15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Friday morning, Philadelphia will end its last two major COVID-19 restrictions, the city's indoor mask mandate and its final call for restaurants at 11 p.m. A few selected restrictions will remain in place.
The city says that people who are not fully vaccinated are "still strongly recommended to wear masks indoors and outdoors when around others, but are not required to do so." The health department also says people who are fully vaccinated do not need to wear masks in most settings.
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The city has a list of exceptions to the end of the mask mandate, saying masks need to be worn indoors in settings "including but not limited to":
- Health care institutions including temporary community health care events such as vaccine clinics and blood drives
- Congregate facilities such as prisons, shelters, and adult day programs
- Public transportation including planes, trains, buses, taxis, and rideshare vehicles
- Indoor schools, camps and early childhood education
Philadelphia's courts also say the mask requirement will remain for their facilities and procedures.
"Settings that are higher risk, where we know there may be more people who are vulnerable," said Acting Health Commissioner Dr. Cheryl Bettigole. "We want to make sure we have that extra layer of protection."
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Dr. Bettigole said that the current case counts are the smallest since the pandemic began, but the effect of COVID-19 is still being felt.
“Lifting the requirement for vaccinated people to wear masks indoors doesn’t mean that we are totally past COVID-19," Dr. Bettigole said.
"Dozens of Philadelphians are still being diagnosed with COVID-19 every day, which means that more of us still need to get vaccinated.”
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According to the Health Department, the city has seen an average of 53 daily new COVID-19 cases in June, and the number of people in Philadelphia's hospitals is near the lowest point the city has seen since late September of last year.
"I was initially hoping we'd be below 100 cases. We're looking like we'll be under a rolling average of 50 cases per day," said Dr. Bettigole.
"We are as safe as we could be at this stage, and it was still a difficult decision because we know some Philadelphians haven’t gotten vaccinated yet."
The city says that 52% of Philadelphia adults have been fully vaccinated, with 67.4% of adults receiving at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose.
She still called the mask mandate removal a hard decision, because of those vaccination numbers.
"They're somewhat safer because there is less COVID-19 around, but they're not protected, and that means if they're in a crowd of people, it only takes one person to infect them," Dr. Bettigole explained.
She says some people may continue wearing masks, for any number of reasons.
"We want to avoid having people judge other people for having their masks on," said Dr. Bettigole. "Go ahead and wear it if you're more comfortable. An extra layer of safety is never a bad thing."
“For nearly fifteen months, the City of Philadelphia has had restrictions in place to protect each other, and I have no doubt that these restrictions saved countless lives,” said Mayor Jim Kenney in a statement.
“But Friday will be a day that we’ve all been looking forward to: getting back to doing the things that we love. Thanks to the more than two-thirds of adults who’ve been vaccinated already, we can finally do the things that we’ve missed doing for the last year. I urge everyone who has not been vaccinated to join the more than 800,000 fellow Philadelphians so we can continue to move forward from the pandemic.”
The city is holding a series of drawings for vaccinated citizens. 36 of them will win up to $50,000 in three separate drawings.