Philadelphia to End Indoor Mask Mandate
Source: KYW
"Due to decreasing hospitalizations and a leveling of case counts, the City will move to strongly recommending masks in indoor public spaces as opposed to a mask mandate," a spokesperson with the Philadelphia Health Department told NBC10 Thursday night. "Given the latest data, the BOH voted to rescind the mandate."
The spokesperson did not reveal if the decision was effective immediately but said more details will be revealed on Friday.
The reverse decision comes only a few days after Philadelphia became the first major city in the U.S. to reinstate its Covid-19 mask mandate for indoor activities as the highly contagious omicron BA.2 subvariant drives new Covid cases higher across the country.
Read more: https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/coronavirus/philadelphia-lifts-indoor-mask-mandate/3215161/
= new reply since forum marked as read
using 3 "indicators", where a change in "2 of 3" criteria will trigger an action - https://www.phila.gov/programs/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19/guidance/covid-19-response-levels/
The City will use the least restrictive response level that applies, according to the following thresholds.
Response level | Criteria | Mandate
Level 4: Extreme Caution Two or more of the following are true:
Average new cases per day are greater than 500. Hospitalizations are greater than 500. Cases have increased by more than 50% in the previous 10 days.
You must:
Present your vaccine card or exemption for places that serve food or drink. Wear a mask when indoors in public places.
Level 3: Caution Two or more of the following are true:
Average new cases per day are between 225 and 500. Hospitalizations are between 100 and 500. Cases have increased by more than 50% in the previous 10 days
You must:
.Present your vaccine card or exemption or a negative test within 24 hours for places that serve food or drink (acceptable tests include lab or onsite testing, not home tests). The negative test option is available to patrons only. Wear a mask when indoors in public places
Level 2: Mask Precautions Two or more of the following are true:
Average new cases per day are less than 225. Hospitalizations are less than 100. Cases have increased by more than 50% in the previous 10 days.
You must:
Wear a mask when indoors in public places. There is no vaccine or testing requirement for places that serve food or drink.
Level 1: All Clear Two or more of the following are true:
Average new cases per day are less than 100. Hospitalizations are less than 50. Cases have increased by less than 50% in the previous 10 days.
No vaccine or testing requirement for places that serve food or drink. No mask requirement (except in schools, healthcare institutions, congregate settings, and on public transportation; see “other situations” below).
Other situations
Some COVID-19 restrictions have been instituted in certain higher-risk settings like schools and large events. These settings will work differently than the rest of the city in many cases.
Schools and early childhood education settings will continue to require 100% masking. For schools, we will continue to watch and evaluate the data. If it continues to move in the right direction, we plan to end mandatory masking in schools on March 9. Then, we will have a one-week mask requirement after spring break to avoid a post-break surge in cases. Healthcare settings (PDF) will continue to require masks under federal guidance. Large outdoor events, like concerts and races, with more than 1,000 people will require and check vaccine status during Level 4 (Extreme Caution), will require and check either vaccine status or have a negative test during Level 3 (Caution), and will have no restrictions during Level 2 (Mask Precautions) or Level 1 (All Clear). College and university food and dining halls are covered by the City’s Institutions of Higher Education mandate (PDF) and are not covered by the City’s COVID-19 response levels.
If you have questions about the City’s COVID-19 response levels, please call (215) 685-5488.
The hope with this is to NIP a rise in the bud before it becomes a surge.
I remember 2 years ago watching Cuomo's daily pressers and one of the ways that he described that they did there (and NYC actually did it as "micro-tracking and targeting" of neighborhoods by zip), was to implement restrictions in hyper-local areas as soon as something started moving in the wrong direction to bring the case rates down, and then slowly "open the valve" (reduce restrictions) and watch the result, and go from there.
I had been tracking here since March 13, 2020 when they first started locking down and ended up with a 6-month megathread here - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142446993). I'm still tracking in my only little file...
Yesterday's report -
Link to tweet
@PHLPublicHealth
April 21, 2022 COVID-19 update:
242 average new cases per day
280,674 Philadelphians diagnosed with COVID-19
5,025 Philadelphians have died from COVID-19
65 hospitalizations
For more information: http://ow.ly/oD5Q50F9ZpR
Image
2:47 PM · Apr 21, 2022
So in this case, they are using the 2 criteria of "Cases have increased by more than 50% in the previous 10 days." (which is where they are now saying they have "leveled" and no longer increasing at "more than 50% in the previous 10 days" ) but my issue is whether they believe this has happened - "Hospitalizations are less than 50", because 65 hospitalizations is surely greater than the threshold of 50 hospitalizations (or less).
They are supposed to have a presser this morning to discuss. Could be they lift at some point next week depending on what the hospitalizations do.
ETA listening to the radio report this morning, the reporter said there was a Board of Health meeting last night with suggestions of slightly revising the criteria because IMHO, the hospitalizations are NOT at the lower level yet to go "all clear", although the commentary from the Health Board meeting was that "the hospitalizations were dropping". So am guessing they may tweak the criteria for "trends" - which can get tricky due to how the data comes in (often in batches).
and they are apparently going to ditch that now...
I know back last year when we were going through the horrors of the Omicron wave on the heels of Delta, many of the media and businesses demanded some kind of "guidelines" from the city, so they put that together and posted it this past February at the end of that COVID spike to provide some sort of criteria that would "trigger" moving through different action levels.
So as we started to bottom out in March, they decided to move to "All clear" and lift the mandate. But then a month later, the cases and hospitalizations started increasing again (and we know that the same has been happening in neighboring states like NY and NJ). so last week (April 11) when the city hit that "mask mandate" criteria (2 out of 3 metrics met), they re-instituted the mandate but gave everyone a week to implement it (which happened this past Monday). And of course the local AND national media went on a blitz to basically shame and insult the hell out of the city with the repeated broken record mantra of "the only big city to..." *click* "the only big city to...." *click* "the only big city to..." *click*. 
However what did happen by week's end was that the hospitalizations started dropping a bit (although they are still above the criteria) and the average cases per day have slowly been dropping as well (again despite still being above the criteria), so, goal-post move.
This was their presser -
I was at the post office and supermarket this afternoon and thankfully about 80% of the people there were still masked (but then I try to go at "retiree times" so
).
Oh and hospitalizations actually went UP today but... oh well.
Link to tweet
@PHLPublicHealth
April 22, 2022 COVID-19 update:
221 average new cases per day
280,852 Philadelphians diagnosed with COVID-19
5,026 Philadelphians have died from COVID-19
71 hospitalizations
For more information: http://ow.ly/oD5Q50F9ZpR
Image
1:06 PM · Apr 22, 2022
they all have lost credibility.
BUT it's because this process lays bare what many of us in scientific fields have know all along - you can give hundreds of "scientists" (and in this case, that can include medical professionals) the EXACT same "data" and you will get hundreds of different "opinions" on what that data "means". And that is why you are seeing all the flip-flopping and wild swings of guidance even though all of them say "follow the science".
The severity of the pandemic ended up requiring answers "now!!111!!1!!" so they could only give their "best guess" without necessarily having all the ancillary additional data needed to make a more informed decision. And if/when that "best guess" didn't pan out, they had to try something else. But that just makes matters worse when it comes to "public health" because a "miss" can mean some consequences that might have been avoided (although this is something that is common in research - i.e., theories that don't get validated or verified with experimentation, which is not normally a "public phenomena" with repercussions associated).
I just remember early on in the pandemic when some people were exhibiting gastrointestinal symptoms and that was summarily dismissed as "not COVID-related", as officials were only focused on "a fever" and/or "a cough". Well they were "wrong" about that one. But I digress...
