Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings announced that he’s considering loosening mask mandates.
At a press conference on Monday, Demings shared that the vaccination rate is rising throughout the county. Given that, he hopes to start peeling back the requirements that people be masked in public in Orange County. The coronavirus-curbing mandate has been in place since last summer.
“We are working with the department of health on a plan to phase reducing requirements of wearing facial coverings and social distancing,” Demings said. “We are reviewing how CDC requirements are evolving along with COVID infection data and a plan will be announced soon.”
Though he gave no specifics, Demings said citizens of Orange County should expect details of a phased plan that was location-specific, with different guidelines for indoor and outdoor spaces.
“Those phases will be based upon both the indoor and outdoor capacity of various locations and so you will see a plan of how we will gradually reduce that within the coming weeks or months.”
Demings has previously stated that the mandate could end entirely once more than half of the county is fully vaccinated.
“We knew that we would not be in this phase forever where we would be requiring people to needlessly wear facial coverings,” he said.
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This article appears in Apr 7-13, 2021.