Vox Sentences - More states are done with mask mandates

A number of Democratic-leaning states are easing masking rules as omicron subsides; Canada's protests against vaccine mandates for truckers have spread to New Zealand and France. 

Tonight's Sentences was written by Ellen Ioanes.

New York, Massachusetts drop mask mandates

Jay L. Clendenin/LA Times via Getty Images

• Massachusetts will drop its requirement that teachers and pupils wear masks in schools on February 28, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker announced Wednesday. Massachusetts joins an increasing number of states — many of them Democratic-leaning — that are transitioning away from Covid-19 precautions. [NYT]
• New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, announced in a press conference Wednesday that the state’s indoor mask mandate for businesses statewide will not be renewed after it expires Thursday; mask mandates in New York City will remain in effect. However, the state has yet to rescind its mandate on masks in schools, which Hochul says will be reassessed at the beginning of next month. [WSJ / Jimmy Vielkind and Allison Prang]
• New York City still requires masks on public transit, and they’ll still be required in health care facilities and shelters throughout the state. Counties, cities, and individual businesses still have the option to implement their own mask mandates. [NPR / Rachel Treisman]
• Baker’s and Hochul’s announcements come after state officials in Oregon, California, Delaware, New Jersey, and Connecticut said Monday they would roll back Covid-19 mask mandates, citing a decline in the number of omicron cases. Four of the states — with California as the exception — gave deadlines for ending masks mandates in schools. [Reuters / Rami Ayyub]
• But Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky warned against dropping mask mandates just yet, saying that the CDC’s guidance had not changed and mask use was still recommended in schools. “We have and continue to recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission — that is essentially everywhere in the country in public indoor settings,” she said on Tuesday. [The Hill / Caroline Vakil]

Canada trucker protests spread to France and New Zealand

• Truckers in Canada and their supporters have blocked two major throughways between Canada and the US, protesting the requirement that drivers be vaccinated to enter Canada. The protests in Canada have been snarling the auto parts supply chain and inspiring copycat protests in France and New Zealand. [NYT / Ian Austen and Dan Bilefsky]
• The Coutts border crossing between Alberta and Montana and the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Detroit to Windsor, Ontario, were both blocked off by protesters on Tuesday, according to Canadian provincial and local authorities. The blockages are part of a growing protest against Canada’s pandemic measures, and the government overall, with protesters vandalizing national monuments and calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to resign. [Washington Post / Amy Cheng and Jennifer Hassan]
• Similar protests have popped up in New Zealand and France over the past week. Truckers and people in campers protested outside parliament in the capital of Wellington, New Zealand, on Tuesday, inspired by the Canadian protests and shouting slogans like “coercion is not consent.” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she would not engage with the protesters and that the nation’s 96 percent vaccination rate has kept the government from having to impose further restrictions. [AFP via France24]
• Protesters from southern France, some carrying Canadian flags, are making their way to Paris, and plan to head from there to Brussels, the capital of the European Union. About 200 people each from Nice and Perpignan were part of the French “freedom convoy” demanding that France scrap its vaccine pass, among other restrictions put in place to fight Covid-19. [Reuters / Eric Gaillard]

Avian flu has been detected in a turkey flock at an Indiana farm; about 29,000 birds will be killed as a precaution, but it does not present a public health threat at this time. [Reuters / Tom Polansek]

• The Justice Department has arrested a New York couple it says was planning to launder nearly $4 billion in stolen cryptocurrency. [NPR / Ryan Lucas]
• Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda announced Wednesday that his government would seek a permanent US troop presence to build up security against potential Russian aggression in the Baltic region. [Radio Free Europe]
• Guards opened fire on ISIS-affiliated families at Al Hol detention camp in Rojava, a Kurdish region in Syria, killing a child. [NYT / Jane Arraf]

“We saw it happen. It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election, from one administration to the next. That’s what it was.” 

[Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, rebutting the Republican National Committee’s description of the events of January 6, 2021, as “legitimate political discourse”]

What the monobob does and doesn't do for gender equality. [YouTube]

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