COLUMBUS, Ohio—Fully vaccinated people in Ohio will no longer be required to wear a mask except when in certain crowded indoor settings, Gov. Mike DeWine announced Friday.
The governor’s announcement that he will amend the state’s mask mandate comes a day after the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new coronavirus guidance stating that fully vaccinated people don’t have to wear masks outside or in many indoor spaces.
Until now, an Ohio Department of Health order has generally required people to wear masks while indoors, as well as in crowded outdoor settings such as sporting events, concerts, and parades.
DeWine said his administration, per CDC guidelines, will still require mask use in a health-care setting, when people are travelling on airplanes or public transportation, and when they are in a business that chooses to require masks.
Ohio’s mask mandate, along with most other state coronavirus orders, will go away entirely on June 2, DeWine announced Wednesday, citing rising vaccination rates. However, coronavirus rules for nursing homes and long-term-care facilities in the state -- which include mask requirements during visits -- will still remain in place after June 2.
Individuals who have not been vaccinated should continue to wear masks, DeWine said in a release Friday.
“The experience in other states has been that some individuals may choose to wear masks, and many businesses, schools, hospitals, and other employers may choose to require masks in their buildings,” the governor said in a statement. “That will remain their choice.”
The CDC directive, by prompting DeWine’s announcement Friday, effectively ended a key part of Ohio’s COVID-19 restrictions three weeks early, said Paul Beck, a political scientist at Ohio State University.
“I think (DeWine) is under enormous pressure to make these decisions and get things back to more or less normal,” Beck said. “I think that a lot of merchants are just itching to open up.”
Beck said he doesn’t expect authorities will do much to enforce the remaining mask requirements that DeWine is leaving in place, as there are “obvious problems” with trying to enforce a mask mandate only for people who remain unvaccinated.
“Of course, (people) can always say, ‘Oh yeah I’m vaccinated,’ and we don’t yet have any clear proof of vaccination that people have to show,” Beck said.
Ohio first flirted with mask mandates in April 2020 when DeWine announced -- then hastily reversed -- a mask requirement for retail customers in the state. Following a surge in cases last summer, DeWine instituted a statewide mask mandate in July of 2020, which has remained in place since.
Studies have shown that wearing masks helps to curb the spread of COVID-19. But among mostly conservative critics, the state’s mask mandate has been one of the most despised of DeWine’s coronavirus policies. Republican state lawmakers introduced legislation to overturn mask requirements, and one legislator even refused to wear a mask on the grounds that it dishonors God.
While the state was on track to remove its mask mandate in less than three weeks, DeWine is continuing a push to get more people vaccinated. Following approval from the federal government, vaccination sites began administering Pfizer doses to children age 12 to 17 this week, including at the Wolstein Center mass vaccination site in downtown Cleveland.
Earlier Friday, unrelated to his lifting of the mask mandate, DeWine signed House Bill 6 which, among other changes, expands who can administer vaccines in the state, including podiatrists, pharmacists and pharmacy interns.
The governor is also employing more creative techniques to try and get people to get vaccinated, including weekly $1 million giveaways to five Ohioans who have at least started their vaccines as well as a corresponding drawing for five people younger than 18 to receive full-ride scholarships to any Ohio state college or university.
On Thursday, DeWine also announced that the state would stop taking payments for enhanced unemployment benefits from the federal government of $300-a-week per person, saying the administration felt unemployment payments were becoming an incentive to people not to return to work.