As more people get the coronavirus vaccine, many are questioning when the mask mandate will end in Massachusetts.
Though neighboring states like New Hampshire, Connecticut and now Rhode Island have announced they are relaxing mask mandates and business restrictions, Gov. Charlie Baker said Thursday that he's not ready to make a similar announcement regarding Massachusetts. But he said there could be news on that before the end of the month.
"We've been following the public health data and the COVID data," he said. "We continue to talk to our medical advisory board and track the CDC guidance."
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The last time the rules changes in Massachusetts was a month ago when large venues like Fenway Park were permitted to open at 12% capacity, and most businesses are still restricted to 50% capacity and no more than 500 people.
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"We've generally been making announcements around issues of COVID every two or three weeks," Baker said. "I expect we'll have some stuff to say before the end of April. For now, people need to continue to follow the rules and guidance."
New Hampshire announced last week that it was lifting its mask mandate and rolling back all other pandemic-related measures on May 7. And Connecticut announced Monday that it will lift all outdoor restrictions on May 1 and all other business restrictions will be phased out starting May 19.
On Thursday, Rhode Island said it will also be easing its outdoor mask mandate and other restrictions on May 7.
Still, Baker cautioned Thursday that the battle with COVID is far from over.
"I think it's really important for people to understand that we are not done with COVID," he said. "We will probably not be completely done with COVID for quite a while. We'll probably be talking about booster shots at some point when we all get past the point where we're vaccinated for the first time.'
"I think it's important that we move at a pace to make sure the reopening process we pursue is consistent with the guidance and recommendations we're getting from the experts and it doesn't create a bounce in the wrong direction," Baker noted. "So the answer is you're going to have to wait and see."
Baker spoke after touring the Berkshire Regional Collaborative Vaccination Site in Pittsfield. He also visited MGM Springfield earlier in the day and is scheduled to attend an Earth Day celebration in Framingham later Thursday afternoon.
Elected officials and health experts have been racing to get shots in arms while more infectious variants of COVID-19 spread. Through Wednesday, Massachusetts had fully vaccinated about 2.13 million people, more than 38% of the state's adult population.
More than 203,000 of those have received the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which the state ordered providers to stop administering on April 13 to comply with a federally recommended pause.
Nearly 100,000 vaccine doses were reported to the state Tuesday as administered, the Department of Public Health reported Wednesday. The agency said 5,303,005 total COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered in Massachusetts as of the end of Tuesday, an increase of 93,385 doses from the previous day's report. The number of people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 climbed to 2,136,135, up by about 40,000 people.
State health officials confirmed 1,370 new coronavirus cases from 77,068 tests in their daily report Wednesday, dragging the seven-day average positive test rate up slightly from 2.11% to 2.14%.
Compared to a day earlier, Wednesday's report counted fewer patients in Massachusetts hospitals with COVID-19. The Department of Public Health said Wednesday that 686 people are hospitalized for the highly infectious virus, a drop of 22 from Tuesday's report.
The estimate of active COVID-19 cases also dropped day-over-day, from 33,060 on Tuesday to 32,134 on Wednesday.
