NEW YORK — As long as New York’s coronavirus infection risk remains low, toddlers won’t have to wear face masks in school starting next month, Mayor Eric Adams announced Tuesday amid concerns that a new COVID-19 variant will cause cases to rise.
Adams, who dropped the mask requirement for K-12 students on March 7, said that, come April 4, kids younger than 5 won’t need to wear face coverings in school or at day care settings, either. But with that, he included the caveat that he may reconsider the move if COVID-19 cases surge.
“If the numbers continue to show a low level of risk, masks will be optional for 2-to-4-year-old students in schools and in day cares,” Adams said in the City Hall rotunda. “We want to see our babies’ faces again.”
However, Adams would not commit to lifting another contentious COVID-19 rule on Tuesday — the vaccination mandate for private-sector employers. That mandate has made considerable waves because it has prevented athletes who’ve refused to get vaccinated, like the Brooklyn Nets’ Kyrie Irving, from playing at-home games.
“I do not feel any pressure doing this job because I’m going to do what’s right. That is what I’m going to do. Let me tell you what pressure is: pressure is being a transit cop in 1984, riding the trains by yourself with a radio that didn’t work,” Adams, a former NYPD captain, said. “We’re going to do it in the right way. We’re going to follow the science.”
Adams suggested that any future lifting of additional mandates would depend, in part, on how mandates that have already been rolled back impact the city.
“Each layer we peel back, we’re going to do an analysis: are we OK?” said Adams, who also scrapped the city’s coronavirus vaccine mandate for indoor activities like dining earlier this month. “And if we have to pivot and shift and come back here in a week and say we’re going to do something different, we’re going to do that.”
The lifting of the pre-K mandate means there would be no educational settings in the city where masks are still required.
It would also mark a win for a group of young parents who’ve called on Adams to allow the unmasking of toddlers in school, pointing to studies showing youngsters suffer mentally and socially from the face-covering mandate.
On the flip side, some public health experts have pleaded to keep pandemic precautions in place until a more precise picture emerges of how COVID-19’s BA.2 strain, the highly contagious subvariant of the omicron mutation, will impact the city.
Even Adams’ health commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, made a case last week for keeping the toddler rule in place because federal regulators still haven’t authorized COVID-19 vaccines for kids under 5.
“I would love nothing more than to send my son to day care without a mask,” Vasan, whose kid is 4, said during a COVID-19 briefing last week. “But as a scientist ... I want to keep him safe because he’s not eligible for a vaccine.”
Speaking at Tuesday’s City Hall press conference alongside Adams, Vasan stressed that the city will reevaluate the mask mandate rollback for younger kids if BA.2 triggers a sharp surge in cases. But he also attempted to set expectations, noting that he foresees an increase in cases in the coming days.
“If we see the levels of risk rise either before or after the mandate is lifted, we may be here having another conversation,” he said. “We are going to see some rise in cases. We are more prepared than ever to tolerate that in our hospital system, but also with all the tools we have in the community to keep ourselves safe, to keep ourselves out of the hospital in the first place. For New Yorkers, that means go get vaccinated, go get fully vaccinated, and then go get boosted.”
Vasan also noted that while hospitalizations among young children due to COVID-19 remain higher when compared with adults, the actual number of kids hospitalized is low.
“The overall, the absolute level is very low, which gives us comfort to do this,” he said.
The BA.2 variant now accounts for about half of all of New York’s infections, according to data from the state Department of Health released Monday.
The subvariant is fueling coronavirus spikes in China and Europe and has resulted in a slow but steady increase in cases in the city, with the Big Apple’s average test positivity rate reaching 1.24% on Monday after weeks of the metric keeping flat at or below 1%.
So far, New York has not seen a rise in COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations due to BA.2.
Still, Gov. Kathy Hochul acknowledged concern over the subvariant Monday.
“We are closely monitoring BA.2 and will continue to stay vigilant by making tests, vaccines and boosters widely available,” she said. “The best way to keep the numbers down is by using the tools we know work. If you feel sick, get tested. If you test positive, talk to a doctor right away about treatments.”
_____
