FILE – Chris Sununu listens during a State of New Hampshire Executive Council meeting at the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire in Dover, N.H., Aug. 26, 2015.
Gov. Chris Sununu on Friday extended New Hampshire's start of emergency declaration another three weeks, citing an increase in coronavirus cases across the state and in the region.
Sununu, a Republican, initially declared a state of emergency on March 13 and has continued to extend it every 21 days. A further extension is needed to combat a ``significant increase'' in COVID-19 infections in New Hampshire in recent weeks, he wrote.
Among other measures, the order continues a statewide mask mandate for everyone over age 5 when they cannot stay 6 feet away from people outside their household. Sununu's order also cites concerns with climbing cases in neighboring Massachusetts.
The New Hampshire counties with the highest numbers of infections are those that border Massachusetts, he wrote. A separate order signed Friday establishes new rules to collect data on COVID-19 vaccinations once doses become available. The order requires all health care providers to enter vaccinations into a state database in order to track the state's planned rollout of the vaccine.
The 7-day rolling average of daily new cases in New Hampshire has risen over the past two weeks from 359 new cases per day on Nov. 27 to 824 new cases per day on Dec. 11, according to an Associated Press analysis of data provided by The COVID Tracking Project.
