PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — No other big city has done it yet, and the CDC doesn't recommend it for Philadelphia, but the Department of Public Health says masks will be required starting next Monday.
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City health officials said last week that if the COVID-19 situation were to continue to trend in the same direction, then the city would move from the Level 1 all-clear response to Level 2, which requires masking in indoor public places.
"Today, we're reporting that we're averaging 142 new cases every day," Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said in a press conference Monday. "Today's case count is more than 50% higher than what we saw 10 days ago. So we know that cases are rising fairly quickly."
The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 is still low, she said, at 46. "So today, I'm announcing that we have reached the threshold for moving out of the 'All Clear' COVID response level and into the 'mask precautions' level.
She said the city will allow a one-week "education period" to give time to get the word out.
The health department also confirmed that previous rules regarding businesses choosing to require vaccinations are still in effect. If a business requires everyone who enters, including staff and patrons, to be fully vaccinated and is checking for vaccination status, they would be exempt from this new mask mandate.
Listen to the full announcement here:
At odds with the CDC?
Based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s community transmission levels measurement, masking is currently recommended in only 19 counties in the entire country. That does not include the Philadelphia region, which is part of 95% of the country where transmission is considered low.
And, Philadelphia is not yet close to reaching the point where the CDC would recommend masking for most people. To reach the level of "high" community transmission that would trigger the CDC's indoor mask recommendation, Philadelphia, over a seven-day period, would need to see roughly 3,000 cumulative cases and 150 hospital admissions — or 300 hospital admissions.
The cumulative seven-day case count as of Friday was 822, and the total hospitalized was 48, and not all were admitted in the prior week.
Asked why the city would make a public health decision at odds with CDC guidance, Bettigole said it had to do with local conditions.
"The CDC has been clear in messaging now and previously that local conditions do matter," she said. "I think we've all seen here in Philadelphia how much our history of redlining, history of disparities, has impacted, particularly, our Black and brown communities here in the city. So it does make sense to be more careful in Philadelphia than perhaps in an affluent suburb."
Dr. Cheryl Bettigole explains why Philadelphia is going against CDC guidance
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Bettigole said the hope is that, by having people masked up in indoor public spaces, the city can get ahead of the next wave and avoid reaching a peak like in January with the omicron surge.
Current trends in Philadelphia are not as dramatic as that. Cases are less than 5% of the numbers seen back in early January.
"I suspect that this wave will be smaller than the one we saw in January, but if we wait to find out to put our masks back on, we would have lost our chance to stop the wave," Bettigole said. "If we mask up now and find out that hospitalizations don’t increase in the U.S. in response to this variant the way they had in U.K., then great — we can take off the masks with a sense of relief."
Caught off guard
The city may need that one-week education period. A number of people who spoke to KYW Newsradio seemed surprised by the announcement.
"I’m just genuinely shocked that I haven’t heard about it," said Emily Disabido. "I guess I’m a little surprised. It kind of feels reactionary."
She works in health care, and she said she was still caught off guard by the city’s announcement.
"I heard some whisperings of it but I wasn’t sure that it was actually going to happen," said Matt from Manayunk, who runs a Mac repair shop.
The Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association, representing businesses that were hit hard during the pandemic, issued a statement. "We are extremely disappointed to hear the city’s plans to mandate masks," is read, in part.
"It's kind of a roller coaster, up and down," said Julia, who works at Volo Cafe on Main Street in Manayunk. She agrees with PRLA and expects the reinstated mandate to affect things at work and at school.
"If cases are rising, and it’s necessary, going to have to wear them at school again, too, but we’ve been used to them, so I don’t think it will be that big of a deal," she said.
The city will enforce the rule starting on Monday, April 18.