PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The City of Philadelphia could reinstate an indoor mask mandate next week, as the Philadelphia Department of Public Health has seen a more rapid increase in the number of daily COVID-19 cases in the city.
James Garrow, the department’s communications director, said Thursday that the city’s decisions on COVID-19 policy are made weekly on Mondays.
“If today was Monday, we would be moving into that mask precaution.”
Garrow said the city uses certain criteria to determine whether COVID-19 guidelines should be changed.
To reinstate the mask mandate:
- The average number of daily new cases must be higher than 100.
- More than 50 people must be hospitalized. (Hospitalizations are currently stable at around 50, down from a peak of nearly 1500.)
- Daily cases have had to increase by more than 50% in the previous 10 days.
Daily case totals aren’t yet anywhere near as high as they were in January when there were more than 3,500 new cases each day.
Philadelphia has not had a mask mandate in place since March 2, as discussed on a past Jawncast below.
The city released an update to COVID-19 case and hospital counts on Thursday.
The 14-day average case count in Philadelphia has also gone from a low of 59.5 on March 20 to 92.2 on Tuesday.
The School District of Philadelphia has not instituted a mask mandate since March 9, but Superintendent William Hite said that many students and staff are still masking up.
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“Anecdotally we see good numbers of children who are still in masks and good numbers of educators who are still wearing masks, although voluntarily,” he said.
“I think it's all a level of comfort for them. And so we still have the ability to provide masks to anyone who needs them. We're going to continue that.”
Hite said that when staff and students return from their April 11-15 spring break, they will be required to wear masks during classes for the week of April 18-22.
“But we will await any directions we will receive from the Health Department as it relates to schools,” said Hite of further measures.
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At Reading Terminal Market Thursday, there were reactions on both sides of the masking argument to the possibility of a returned mandate.
“I think is better safe than sorry,” said Temple Pitkow. “I feel more comfortable going to more social events if everybody's wearing a mask.”
“I'm hoping that every individual knows their medical situation and can make the best decision for themselves,” Cheryl Peebles from Wyncote said..
“Most people got vaccinated already. So I think it's just overboard,” said Phil Wilson, from Lebanon, Pennsylvania
Michael Rice of South Philadelphia explained he would wear a mask indoors if it was required.
“I'm not on the surface completely opposed to a mask mandate,” said Rice. “Things are spiking, and it's proved to be helpful.”
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Reading Terminal Market CEO and General Manager Annie Allman said she has been supportive of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health's recommendations in the past.
“But pragmatically at this point, I'm very concerned that if a mask mandate is put back into place, what that will do for the overall economy of the city?” she asked.
“We have a really robust convention and meeting on the books at the [Pennsylvania] Convention Center,” Allman added, while also concerned about her own business if a mask mandate is implemented. “And I'd hate to see that go backward.”
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On Monday, the city strongly recommended wearing masks in indoor spaces but stopped short of a mandate, because the city had not reached the threshold needed to reinstate it.
“It is absolutely not our preference to go back to a mask mandate,” said Garrow. “We would much rather COVID be over but the fact of the matter is, there's still a deadly pandemic going on.”
Garrow said that COVID-19 spikes in Philadelphia tend to mirror spikes in Europe after a bit of a lag, and that is what they’re seeing right now.
“If all it takes to help stop that from happening here is people wearing a mask when they go indoors,” he said, “we think that's a small price to pay.”
Mike DeNardo and KYW Staff contributed to this report.
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Related podcast: How the Center for Disease Control and Prevention made changes to its masking guidelines.
