NEW YORK CITY: Health Official Issues Alert Advising Masks Be Worn Indoors In The Big Apple

New York City’s Commissioner of Health and Human Hygiene, Ashwin Vasan, issued an advisory to residents that “All individuals, regardless of vaccination status or past Covid-19 infection, should wear a mask at all times when indoors and in a public setting.”

The announcement notes that “New York City is approaching ‘high’ level of Covid-19 alert which represents high community spread,” according to the CDC. 

The advisory is simply that: advice. But should the region tip into the high level of community spread, the CDC recommends that all residents “wear a well-fitting mask indoors in public, regardless of vaccination status.”

Such a federal recommendation in the past has led to local adoption in New York via a mandatory health officer order.

Early in the pandemic, New York City was the epicenter of Covid spread in the United States and, at moments, the world.

Now the city of 8-plus million people again finds itself a hot zone of virus spread as the more transmissible BA.2.12.1 Omicron variant, which was first identified in the Northeast, has quickly overtaken BA.2 in the region.