Hawaii Announces End to Indoor Mask Mandate, the Last State to Do So

Townhall.com ^ | 8 March A.D. 2022 | Landon Mott

[lightman]

Hawaii Gov. David Ige (D) announced Tuesday that the state's indoor mask mandate will be lifted later this month, making it the final U.S. state to ease such restrictions.

Ige said at a news briefing that indoor masking will no longer be required beginning March 26.

"Because of people who have been serious about this and other measures to prevent the spread of the virus, we have reduced COVID-19 in Hawaii to the point where most of us will be safe without masks," he said.

He said COVID hospitalizations and case counts are declining and that "we are better at treating people who are infected with the virus." Ige also said booster shots are "saving lives" and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "rates the state's COVID-19 community level as low all across the state."

After an uptick in COVID cases in the middle of January due to the highly infectious omicron variant of the virus, the number of new cases in Hawaii has since trended downwards.

The governor said Hawaii was the last state to end its indoor mask mandate because "we are all willing to sacrifice to keep each other healthy and safe." The state has required indoor masking since April 2020.

Oregan and Washington state still have indoor mask mandates in place but the requirements in those states will expire on Saturday, according to a joint statement released by the two governors last month.

Masks will still be required inside schools but the state's outdoor masking requirement for schools was lifted on Tuesday.

And Sarah Kemble, a state epidemiologist at the Hawaii Department of Health, said at the news briefing that students would no longer have to quarantine if they were exposed to someone with the coronavirus.

State officials also still recommend that people mask up if they are in crowded areas or near others who are immunocompromised.

Elizabeth Char, the director of Hawaii's health department, said the mask mandate could be reinstated if the state sees a surge in COVID cases.

"What we're worried about is, you know, the next surge related to another variant," she said at the briefing.

Hawaii's announcement comes after the CDC updated its guidance last month to only recommend Americans wear masks if they reside in counties with higher rates of COVID hospitalizations. The agency's guidance means more than 70 percent of Americans, including students, are no longer advised to mask up, a significant reversal from the guidance of just a few weeks ago.

According to the CDC, the coronavirus community risk in each county in Hawaii is low.

Ige announced last week that entry requirements for travelers would be lifted starting March 26. State and county employers also will no longer be mandated to show either their vaccination status or a negative COVID test result.

[lightman]

Life returns to "normal"....except for school children...

'cause:

It’s all about teaching COMPLIANCE….
...not “following the science”:

Masks are:

1) a sign of submission, subversion and subjugation
2) mandated in order to dehumanize
3) virtue signaling devices
4) meant to provide constant reinforcement of fear
5) used to destroy community, friends and family normal communication
6) implemented to create isolation, confusion, anxiety, destroy human connectivity, trust and interactions
7) mandated to exacerbate illness
8) intended to aid in the abandonment of the belief and reliance on our immune systems
9) intended to refute integrous science
10) signal to positions of power that you are willing to give up all of your rights and freedoms based on anything they say, even if it is a BIG FAT LIE!

[olivia3boys]

Hawaii is BS. I have nothing but scorn for them.

Yes you are correct—students of all ages around the US are still masked. Forcibly masked.

Millions of Californian college students are still masked with no end in sight. Millions of other college students as well. And many K-12 students are still masked in the Western states and elsewhere.

The fight continues. Don’t forget the students. . .

[chajin]

I’ve been teaching for HPU since 2005. Lucky for me, it’s all online and I do it from central DeSantisia. Technically, when I work on a course my office is a college classrom, and to be in full compliance would have required my being masked. I respectfully refuse to discuss my level of compliance during the recent pandemic.

[LeoWindhorse]

Thank goodness . I am so tired of these masks. They hurt my ears . After having to wear them for over 8 hrs at work.

I still see people coming in from the mainland wearing double masks . Tourists driving around masked in their rental cars.
Enough already!

[AbolishCSEU]

I was noticing a teller at the bank with terrible staph like acne on her chin. I blame the masks. (Upstate NY)

[momtothree]

There is actually a slang name for it.. Maskne. I have a friend that was battling it for years. Normally her skin is perfect but but the rubbing of it caused acne. Hopefully soon she will be skin clear (I say that because it became so bad she had to go on antibiotics)

[Jacquerie]

Hawaii is such a beautiful Marxist state. Pity.

[Sicon]

"Because of people who have been serious about this and other measures to prevent the spread of the virus, we have reduced COVID-19 in Hawaii to the point where most of us will be safe without masks,"

All of us were safe without masks since day one of this fraud, because A) the only thing truly dangerous about “COVID” was going to the hospital where the state-owned ghouls deliberately mistreated people, and B) because masks were, are, and always will be useless.

[cp124]

I announce I will never go to Communist Hawaii. It is on my scum bucket list.

[Sicon]

Masks will still be required inside schools

It seems that there is nothing the leftists hate more than children.

[lightman]

It seems that there is nothing the leftists hate more than children.

The ones they don't kill in the womb are tortured with oxygen deprivation...