New Orleans residents and visitors will no longer be required to wear a mask in order to enter a restaurant or business in the city.
New Orleans Health Director Dr. Jennifer Avegno announced that the city’s indoor mask mandate to enter businesses has ended effectively at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday, March 3.
Dr. Avegno made the announcement at a press conference Wednesday where she discussed the city's current outbreak status and new CDC guidelines.
This comes as New Orleans continues to producing declining COVID numbers. “It is clear our sticker guidelines have saved lives,” said Avegno.
Avegno also says the health department’s enhanced efforts such as distributing at-home COVID tests at parades helped break the chain of transmission.
Avegno said, for a month, the city’s health department kept a close eye on the spread of Omicron by gathering information in order to be better prepare the city for the large influx of visitors arriving for Carnival and the impact of large repeat events such as the upcoming Jazz Fest and other festivals.
“The greatest benefit of masking to our community has been during these past few weeks of repeated large crowded activities, particularly indoors, and the threat from those events have significantly lessened ad we enter into Lent and leave Carnival behind,” said Avegno. “We strongly support and encourage individuals’ own decisions to continue masking, I will likely do so myself in many places.”
"We do expect future waves of disease," said Avegno. "The focus will shift to managing outbreaks."
