COLUMBUS, Ohio — Health officials in Columbus indicated that the city’s indoor mask requirement will likely remain in place for a while longer because current case levels are about 12 times higher than the target for ending the mandate.
What You Need To Know
- The city's mask mandate has been in place since September
- Officials said they want to see Franklin County get to the "yellow"
- Columbus Public Heath has issued 12 warning letters for mask issues
The city instituted a mask mandate nearly five months ago in response to the emergence of the delta variant. At the time, health officials said the county needed to move down to the “yellow” moderate transmission category on the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention’s color map for it to be lifted.
As the city recovers from the omicron surge, Columbus Public Health said in a statement Wednesday that it is still eyeing the same target for ending the mask mandate. Officials want to see the county remain in the yellow category for four weeks before lifting the requirement.
“While numbers are starting to move in the right direction, we are still in CDC’s red category for high community transmission,” said Kelli Newman, spokesperson for the health department. “To move to the yellow level, Franklin County needs to get down to a positivity rate of 5 to 7.99% and have a (weekly) case rate of 10-49 per 100,000. Currently, our positivity rate in Franklin County is 17.3% and our case rate is 595 per 100,000.”
The pandemic is subsiding in Ohio, but the situation remains serious, according to health officials. Hospitalizations in Ohio have declined by 44.6% since the peak on Jan. 10 of 6,749, standing at 3,736 Wednesday.
As of a Tuesday update, the Ohio National Guard was continuing to offer clinical, or general support to nine hospitals in Franklin County. The National Guard has been supporting hospitals that became overwhelmed during the omicron surge.
Death numbers, which typically lag cases and hospitalizations, remain very high. Ohio reported 3,624 deaths in January, and average daily deaths were at 149.7 for the past week.
During a recent press conference, City County President Shannon Hardin urged residents to not just wear a face covering, but to opt for a high-quality mask.
“Good quality masks work,” Hardin said. “Get a high quality mask, like the N95 or a KN95. These will dramatically reduce the spread of COVID compared to both cloth masks, or, even worse, people going maskless all together.”
State health officials recommend “medical-grade masks,” which includes multi-layered surgical masks in addition to N95s and KN95s. Free N95 masks are arriving at grocery stores and pharmacies in Ohio through a federal program.
In Columbus, enforcement of the current local mask mandate is less strict than it was earlier in the pandemic when Ohio was under a statewide mask mandate and state investigators were citing noncompliant business. As a result, more Columbus businesses have flouted this local mandate, letting their employees and customers go maskless.
Columbus Public Health is responsible for enforcing the city’s current mask mandate. The city takes complaints that come into 311, but officials are only supposed to take action when a business “recklessly fails” to enforce the mandate, or when an individual “recklessly fails” to comply.
Businesses can assume that maskless patrons have exemptions, and signage indicating that masks are required “shall be prima facie evidence of enforcement.”
The health department has received 748 mask complaints, Newman said. The department has completed 96 inspections and issued 12 warning letters. After a business is issued a warning, they could face a $500 fine, followed by a $1,000 fine for a subsequent offense.
Individuals who violate the ordinance could face a $100 fine for a second offense, or a $250 fine for a third offense.
The mask mandate applies to public-facing venues, such as grocery stores, restaurants, theaters and shops, but does not apply to private offices.
It includes an exception for strenuous indoor physical activity at gyms and fitness centers, and masks are not required while eating or drinking.
When Columbus City Council passed the mandate, it exempted children under 3 from being subject to the requirement. Religious and medical exemptions were also included.
The mask ordinance in Columbus was written to remain in effect until the mayor ends the proclamation of emergency for COVID-19, barring any action by the council to end the mandate before then.