Delaware’s Republican senators request masks stay optional

By Tim Mastro
Posted 4/20/22

DOVER — With the city of Philadelphia reinstating an indoor face-covering requirement this week, Delaware Republican senators have asked the Delaware Division of Public Health not to follow …

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Delaware’s Republican senators request masks stay optional

Posted

DOVER — With the city of Philadelphia reinstating an indoor face-covering requirement this week, Delaware Republican senators have asked the Delaware Division of Public Health not to follow suit.

All seven Republican state senators, led by Sen. Colin Bonini, R-Dover, sent a letter to DPH director Dr. Karyl Rattay on Monday.

“Last week, the city of Philadelphia announced it would be re-implementing its indoor face-covering mandate effective today, Monday, April 18,” the letter read. “In light of this, we felt compelled to reach out and express our strong opinion that the state of Delaware does not follow suit. We believe strongly that our small businesses, schools, and overall societal health have greatly improved in the time that our mandates and State of Emergencies have not been in effect.”

Delaware, like most of the Northeast, has experienced an increase in COVID-19 cases in the last couple of weeks.

However DPH has not hinted at a return of restrictions. Past history would also indicate Delaware’s COVID-19 transmission levels would have to be much worse in order to reinstate masking requirements.

Delaware’s seven-day rolling average for new cases of the virus is at 163 new cases per day, according to DPH’s report on Tuesday. This is up from 59.3 on March 21 which was the lowest mark of 2022.

But it is well down from other surges of the virus. The seven-day average of new cases was above 450 in September 2021, above 700 in early December and skyrocketed above 1,000 in the final days of December and the state never imposed a mask mandate during those increases.

It wasn’t until the omicron variant pushed the seven-day average over 3,000 new cases a day in early January and COVID-19 hospitalizations were at record highs that Delaware elected to bring back a universal mask mandate.

Gov. John Carney then lifted that requirement on Feb. 11. Masks also became optional in schools on March 1 after being required for the academic year.

DPH spokesperson Tim Turane said the agency is “watching a slight uptick in Delaware’s cases, positivity rate and hospitalizations, but Delawareans know what to do to stay safe.”

DPH provided four tips for Delawareans to protect themselves against COVID-19:

• Make sure they are up to date on their vaccines, including boosters.

• Stay home if they feel sick.

• Get tested if they are have symptoms of COVID-19 or have been a direct contact of someone who tested positive.

• Wear a well-fitting mask in public indoor settings if they are immunocompromised, are around someone who is immunocompromised or feel more comfortable doing so.

Mr. Turane said “an increase in the presence of the BA.2 variant is likely a contributing factor,” to the rising COVID-19 levels, but that variant is not present in all sequenced cases.

“We continue to encourage Delawareans to be vigilant and use the tools readily available in their toolbox to stay one step ahead of COVID,” he said.

Delaware has recorded 260,566 cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. There have been 2,896 COVID-19-related deaths in Delaware, including two announced by DPH in Tuesday’s report.

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