With COVID cases and hospitalizations declining across the state, the city of Portland has repealed its indoor mask mandate.
The mandate was put in place last month, when the city sought to curb the spread of the virus as hospitalizations surged across the state. At a meeting on Monday, City Councilor April Fournier said that with those numbers now declining quickly, she felt confident in ending the mandate — but would be ready to reinstitute it if the situation worsens.
"We are ready to address that, and reimplement the strategies we have available to us, having gone through implementing this mask mandate, to re-establish that if we need to," Fournier said. "And I feel like we have the tools to do that. So I do feel comfortable with this amendment."
The city's public health staff noted that while current trends are positive, COVID positivity rates are still higher than when the mask mandate was first considered in late December.
In recent weeks, several other cities in Maine, including Brunswick and South Portland, have approved their own indoor mask mandates.
