After nearly two years, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb signed an executive order that ended the COVID-19 public health emergency in Indiana on Thursday, March 3.
This legislation implemented new restrictions on private COVID-19 vaccines across the state. The bill also discusses requirements for employers to accept medical, religious, and “natural immunity” exemptions from employees.
Per the governor’s actions, on Thursday evening, the Monroe County Board of Health also voted to end the county-wide mask mandate beginning Friday, March 4th at 12:01 a.m.
This decision comes as COVID numbers in the state and the county have fallen drastically from the last wave in mid-January. According to Indiana Public Media, just six weeks ago, almost 19,000 new cases were reported daily, about 3,400 Hoosiers were hospitalized, and more than 70 were dying daily from the virus.
Today, those numbers are down to about 300 new daily positive cases, fewer than a thousand Hoosiers are hospitalized, and daily deaths are in the single digits.
Even with cases dropping across the county, the state, and even the nation, experts warn that this doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the end of the pandemic.
Graham McKeen, the assistant director of public and environmental health at Indiana University explained that still using high-filtration K-95 or KN-95 masks in certain situations could be beneficial. McKeen stated, “I think I will mask in certain indoor situations like grocery stores or Assembly Hall and place like that where larger amounts of people, and maybe I don’t know their vaccination status.”
These local and state changes still allow individual businesses to be able to require masks. And masks will still be required on planes, public buses, and mass transit facilities under the federal health emergency, which remains in effect until March 18th.
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