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Phil Murphy: Because of the dramatic decline in our COVID numbers, effective Monday, March 7th, the statewide school mask mandate will be lifted.

Kathy Hochul: We had a mask or vax requirement for businesses. It was an emergency temporary measure put in place literally two months ago. At this time, we say that is the right decision to lift this mandate.

Brian Lehrer: Governor Kathy Hochul, and Governor Phil Murphy in a tale of two states and two mask mandates being lifted, somewhat, there are differences between them, and they are not complete. The Centers for Disease Control, by of the way, disagrees with both. Let's run down what's changing where, who thinks it's based on science, or just a political dodge, and what defines respect for your neighbor or employees if we're really heading toward an endemic COVID stage. With us for this is New York Times reporter, Sharon Otterman, who covers health care and the pandemic for the papers Metro desk. Welcome back to WNYC, Sharon. Thanks so much for coming on today.

Sharon Otterman: Thanks so much, Brian. It's great to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners in New York, and New Jersey especially, will open up the phones on this right away. New Jerseyans, how do you feel about the school mask mandate ending? New York business owners, will you keep restrictions for your employees or customers on your own, or are you ready to end them as Governor Hochul says, "As of today, you may." Give us a call at 212-433, WNYC 212-433-9692.

Polls seem to show Americans are ready "get back to normal", but I see a lot of people wear mask outside where they aren't required to, or even recommended to maybe because of the cold, but New York City still requires vaccination proof for indoor venues like theaters, gyms, and restaurants. Broadway is keeping its masking and vaccination requirements in place. Keep them or time to end them, folks, at least until the new variant arises. Is your apartment building sticking with masking?

I saw an email that a friend sent me from one co-op in Manhattan that said, "We are deciding to stick with a CDC guidelines and keep our masking mandate for common areas in the building." How about your building? 212-433, WNYC 212-433-9692, or tweet @brianlehrer. Sharon, let's run down some of the details here, because I'm sure people are confused. First, Governor Murphy in New Jersey on Monday announced that the statewide mask mandate in schools and child care facilities would expire on March 7th. What was his reason for doing that?

Sharon Otterman: Governor Murphy has been looking at the data just like governors of other states, and he's also dealing with the political situation. The mandates have proved pretty unpopular in New Jersey, and the school mask mandate in particular has been a flash point, not just in New Jersey, but across the nation. Governor Murphy decided to announce this change, which well in advance of it, we're a month out from that change, but I think just to give the population a sense that he was listening, and that this was something that is coming, he wanted to announce that date now.

Brian Lehrer: New Jersey doesn't have any statewide mandates for indoor dining, or other public indoor gatherings. Whereas in New York State, what's being lifted today is the mandate requiring masking if you don't show proof of vaccination. New York City's restrictions requiring proof of vaccination for theaters, gyms, and restaurants remain in place. It's different even for New York City than the rest of New York State?

Sharon Otterman: Yes, New York City has taken a more restrictive approach through March of this pandemic. If you're in New York City, it's very hard because there's been so many stages of this. If you remember where we were back in December, you were allowed to go into a supermarket without a mask on if you were vaccinated. That changed December 13th, because of the state mask or vax mandate. There's no vaccination required in the supermarket, so you had to wear a mask.

Basically, that state rule has been lifted, and we're back to where we were in December. Remember these original rules, the key to NYC vaccination rules were premised on this idea that if you were vaccinated, you did not need to wear a mask. That was partially to encourage people to get vaccinated, and partially because the science shows you're much more protected.

Once these variants came along, and it turned out that you could still get COVID even if you were vaccinated, some places adjusted their rules and some didn't. New York City did not put in a mask mandate. We just stuck with our vaccination-focused policy, so now we're back to that. Basically, you can go to a store without a mask now. You still do need to wear a mask when you're in a school, when you're in a health care setting, when you're in a nursing home, when you're riding public transportation, all those rules are still there.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe we should say public transportation again, and maybe we should say it five times, because we get so many calls on the show as it is from people complaining that too many people are not wearing masks on the subways and the buses, and people may get the misimpression from casually listening to the reporting on mask mandates being lifted for indoor public gatherings. That does not apply to mass transit anywhere in the United States because that's actually a federal rule at this point. If you're on any mass transit vehicle, you have to wear a mask.

Sharon Otterman: Yes, that's my understanding. That goes to the point about enforcement. You can make a lot of rules, but in the end of the day, you're relying on the population to follow them, and enforcement, as you know, for subway masking rules has been light. There's pretty much no on a subway car where you're not going to see at least one person not following this rule, but the rule still is there.

Brian Lehrer: Governor Hochul, different from governor Murphy, is leaving the school mask mandate in place for now. Why the difference?

Sharon Otterman: They both say that they want time to prepare the children and the teachers for this enormous change. I'm a parent of young children, I think that they would be frightened to actually take off their mask if I told them to do it tomorrow. You do need to prepare the school communities for this huge change. Governor Murphy decided for political reasons probably to announce it a month early.

Governor Hochul said she wants to actually see the data coming out of winter break. She's going to try to give rapid tests to school communities around the state, and look at how many kids are coming back from this mid-winter break, the February break, with COVID infection. If everything looks good, she is going to strongly consider lifting the mandate in March.

Brian Lehrer: You mentioned Murphy and politics. I'm sure politics are in play for Hochul and for every government official at any level on this. How much did the data factor into these decisions? How much were they able to cite specific data? Because, frankly, there's still plenty of Omicron around. 130 people died in New York from COVID yesterday, according to the New York Times' COVID tracker, 75 in New Jersey yesterday, and that's less than two weeks ago, which is the comparison point that the tracker uses, but it's still a lot more than, say, last summer. How much did data factor into these decisions, including any specific metrics that they said triggered some of this lifting versus just political resistance, and polling showing less support for them than before?

Sharon Otterman: I think at this point, it's pretty much impossible to piece apart the data and the politics. If you look around the world, you see so many responses to this even among European nations. We do have more COVID around now than we did. I always think about that summer of 2020 when there was almost no COVID, and still we kept our kids home during Virtual Summer Camp. A lot of this is about perception of risk. The data says that we should keep our masks on. That's why the CDC and the head of the CDC is saying, "We're not there yet." It's fair to say that if you're just looking at the data, and you want to keep COVID as low as possible, we should all continue to wear our masks. The reality is  most of the country is not wearing masks. There's this huge tidal wave of desire to "get back to normal". People who are conservative, and I think who always about all those immunocompromised people, the people with children, parents of children too young to be vaccinated are going to be back in the situation again where if they have a lower risk tolerance, they're going to have to mask and just deal with we hope for the best basically, and just know that public transportation and some of the riskiest settings remain mask zones for now.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're talking about the patchwork of mask requirements remaining in place and being lifted for various venues and various circumstances in New York and New Jersey over the last few days by governor Hochul and governor Murphy with Sharon Otterman who covers exactly this for the New York Times healthcare and the pandemic. We have callers all over the map geographically as well as opinion wise as you might guess, Sharon. So Let's hear sampling right now. Here's Lauren in Brooklyn first, a teacher IC. Hi, Lauren. You're on WNYC.

Lauren: Hi, how are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What have you got for us?

Lauren: I'm a teacher, I'm also a parent of two young children. I'm vaccinated, boosted. My kids are vaccinated. I just think that this policy, this continuation of the mass mandate for schools is also a continuation of putting our kids last in this. I think if the politicians think that the kids can walk by a restaurant with 75 people on masks eating dinner and not feel a sense of injustice, they're wrong. These kids are feeling it now. It's been two years. I think that more concrete language and dates on when we can expect to allow our kids to really get back to normal, just like the adults, just like everyone else would really be a huge step forward.

Brian Lehrer: What age do you teach, if you're willing to say?

Lauren: I teach high school, but my children are kindergarten and third grade. My focus has not been in school without a mask ever.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. If governor Hochul announces, as a lot of people think she will, shortly after winter break that she's going to lift the mass mandate for schools on a certain date, how would you prepare your high school students, how would you prepare your own young child if you think you need to prepare them at all?

Lauren: The high school students it is just so apparent that they're really ready to get back to normal. I know about half are probably just going to take their masks off and burn them and probably another good percentage will-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Even though they'll still be required on a lot of other places like subways. Go ahead.

Lauren: Yes, for sure. They would still, but in schools we have ventilation, we have the windows open, we have certain policies. In the subways, public transportation, that's a lot of a different circumstance. We still have so many other mitigation measures in place. I do feel like the youngest kids are-- they need to really get back to a sense of normalcy.

Brian Lehrer: Lauren, thank you so much for your call. We really appreciate it. Something very different I think coming from Mark in Huntington. Mark, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Mark: Hi, Brian. How are you? I just want to first say that I think this decision both in New Jersey and New York is a big, big mistake. I work for a school bus company and we're required to wear masks of course at all times with children on the bus. I have no problems with that whatsoever. I think this is way too early to lift this mandate. I think we're going to end up going backwards instead of forwards.

The fact that people are anxious to take off their masks should really not even factor into this scenario because the fact remains that as of recently, you see commercials on TV even where the CDC is saying you need to even improve your masking with KM95s and KF94s and so forth over the cloth mask because they're more protective. Now, all of a sudden, because of this social pressure to go back to normalcy, this decision to lift these mandates is ridiculous.

Brian Lehrer: Mark, thank you for your call. I really appreciate it. Two pretty different calls there to start out, Sharon. The point that Mark, that caller, just made is really interesting. We are getting in a certain respect, a very mixed message, almost contradictory message on masks these days. One, it's time to lift the mask mandates because Omicron is significantly enough on the run in various circumstances. The other is, wait, you have to improve your masks. You have to upgrade from those cloth masks that don't work as well as we thought at the beginning of the pandemic that they did and you have to upgrade to something like an N95. How do those two things fit together?

Sharon Otterman: Yes. It's been extremely confusing for the public. I think that's one of the main reasons behind the exhaustion factor is just these confusing, mixed messages. The science is that Omicron is such a wily foe that you are much better off wearing. If you're going to wear a mask, wear a high-quality mask; it's going to protect you much more of the time. In that sense, if you're making kids wear cloth masks and they're not that effective, perhaps it's not even doing that much.

If all the children have KN94s on, you could potentially sit in a room where there's an infected student and knock at it, which has been a big deal for a lot of families. The mixed messages, even in terms of the New York City, we had Eric Adams our new mayor saying we don't want to wallow in COVID and he wanted to go out to some restaurants very publicly. At the same time, I saw on Facebook a message from the department of health that said, "Stay home." It's been extremely confusing for people.

Again, that's why so much of this comes down to personal choice and personal risk management to the extent that we can do it. We can't control our neighbors. We can't control our towns and cities or our school boards. You can do what you can do to keep yourself safe to the level that you're safe. I think we've been on our own for a lot of this pandemic. This is just another phase that we're going to all have to figure out how to navigate through in our own way.

Brian Lehrer: Certainly respect for our neighbors comes into play at least for some of us and hopefully for everybody when they decide what to do because it's as important or more important, the science says, in terms of undiagnosed COVID, asymptomatic COVID that you may have leaving you and the masks' effectiveness to minimize that as it is for incoming if you personally feel vulnerable and are choosing to wear a mask for that reason.

To the first caller, Lauren, teacher of high school students, mother of a preschool student who's never been in school without a mask as she pointed out and she thinks they're ready, do we get a mixed message on this from the data also that, on the one hand, COVID among kids is spreading more quickly percentage-wise than adults these days because a smaller percentage of kids are vaccinated of any age and, at the same time, the rate in schools is very low?

Sharon Otterman: They say that proved transmission rate in schools is low. For those families who've just lived through the Omicron surge, we saw lots of transmission in schools--Let me take that back. We saw lots of transmission among students in the same classrooms. Again, it's when Omicron is everywhere, it's very hard to pinpoint. Did it happen in school? Did it happen at home and that child? That's why those stats are hard. Parents know what they see.

They know if they're getting, which is what happened in New York City, because at least 1 in 10 students was infected in the last six weeks or so, but probably more. I was just reading they didn't even count the 25,000 or 30,000 rapid test results. Parents know that there was a lot of COVID in the schools, the teachers know that. They also know coming out of Omicron, we haven't had this experience where there was this wave of mass serious infection and death caused by wherever the transmission took place. This is a positive thing to say to help allay the fears of the caller from Huntington and others. We're back in these numbers where we were in December. We're back down from the Omicron wave, but we do have some more tools in our toolbox now than we did when we were coming into it. First of all, we have maybe 40  % of the population got Omicron, so all those people now have a layer of immunity that they didn't have before. That's going to make a difference, at least in a short term.

We have therapeutics, which are coming in. While they were very hard to get during the Omicron wave, hopefully, if you need an antiviral pill in the next wave when it comes, it will be there for you. We are in a little bit of a better position than we were coming into Omicron. Hopefully, due to science, we'll continue being in a better position each time we come in and out of these waves.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to take a short break, when we come back, we'll continue with Sharon Otterman from The Times, who covers healthcare and the pandemic, as we unpack this collection of mask mandates being lifted or not in various circumstances as announced by Governor Hochul and Governor Murphy in the last few days. We're going to take two different business owners in Brooklyn calling in next, who now get to decide for themselves what to do. I think we're going to hear different decisions about their individual businesses, so we'll see what that might symbolize. Brian in Brooklyn, we see you. Miesha in Brooklyn, we see you. You two will be next, and then listeners may be you. 212-433 WNYC. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we talk about mask mandate being lifted by Governor Murphy for schools in New Jersey, that takes effect in a few weeks, and in fact, it's not for every school. It allows school districts to decide for themselves and will get to that aspect of it. Governor Hochul in New York, lifting the mask mandate as of today for many kinds of businesses, they may still choose to keep them in place. We have some business owners calling up. Brian in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in today. Hi there?

Brian: Hey there. This is Brian. Yes, I'm from Brooklyn. I'm a coffee shop owner along with a few friends. We opened our first coffee shop in Crown Heights called Daughter. We work on the floor in the café, we all work barista shifts. We've had policies where masks are required when you order and we closed the bathroom during the recent Omicron wave. We even had to close for a few days while three out of seven of us got COVID. I think it was four actually.

It's tricky because one of our bakers, her dad's immunocompromised and she visits him often. It's one of those situations where we're lucky to have really nice customers that usually don't give us trouble about having mask mandates or proof of vaccination, but occasionally, there's these loud altercations that really shake the workers and shake us. This really does feel really sudden, and I found out yesterday on shift that I was working all day, and I'm like, "Wait, now we have to figure out what we're going to do." [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: You understand that it's up to you as a business owner, you still may keep the mask mandate for your coffee shop.

Brian: Yes, exactly. I think when you place that decision on the business and the person working in the same way one of the callers talked about how it places the burden on the students when they're watching people eat food at a restaurant. When it comes to us having to police other people on policies that we enact, more people will get upset. I don't think it'll be a ton of people, but I do see it getting worse.

Worse for us and even worse in neighborhoods that are more-- We're in a pretty residential area of Crown Heights, so I feel like people are pretty nice. When I worked in Manhattan or the really busy areas on Williamsburg or West Village Chelsea, you get a lot more flack. Every barista, every service industry worker has so many stories of really problematic customers and this feels like a really a great way to even make the polar divides more obvious when they are here.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. I hear your concern. Can you tell us one of your stories of getting flack from a customer and how you dealt with it, or one of your workers dealt with it?

Brian: I'm trying to think, sorry. I'm at a parking this isn't a good time to take--

Brian Lehrer: Oh, gosh.

Brian: Man, I'm trying to--

Brian Lehrer: That's all right. I'm going to let you go park your car without crashing into the woods-

Brian: Yes. I appreciate that.

Brian Lehrer: [chuckles] -near you. Brian, I appreciate everything that you said and the way you laid it out. Now I think we're going to get a very different point of view from another Brooklyn business owner, Miesha in Brooklyn. Miesha, thank you very much for call in. You're on WNYC.

Miesha: Thank you so much for taking my call, Brian. I own a small pet food and supply store also in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. I'm a little nervous to be on, but I'm also a little nervous to just be having a public opinion about this very contentious issue and attaching my business name to it, but I will go ahead and plug my business. I love my pet food and supplies. We're on Nostrand Avenue in Crown Heights, and I cannot wait to take my mask off, honestly. I'm also in my car right now on my way to go open the store and I've been opening it for the last two years through this thing.

We were deemed essential, which was amazing. We've been able to stay open seven days a week through the entire pandemic. We've done a lot of mask-on, mask-off kind of stuff with the changing rules through the time, but I can't wait to never put the mask on again in the store. Really, honestly, I'll even say it again, I feel a little bit weird saying this on the radio, but I really hope a lot of my customers will also take the opportunity to take their masks off when they come in the store. By all means, if they want to keep them on and they feel safer keeping them on, by all means, they definitely, absolutely of course can and should, but I would love to see some more faces and be able to communicate a little bit more clearly.

I think that that's a big part of these conversations that's been missed. When people talk about masks, they talk about the small benefits they do add, but they rarely mention the cost that they impose on all of us socially and on our society. I think that it's really a huge cost, especially for the children, which is I know why you have me on, but I also have a child who's a kindergarten student and has never gone to school without a mask on. It's a huge, huge, huge cost for her and for many people, so I hope that people take their masks off when they-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Have you had, or would you anticipate any customer altercations from the opposite side of what we heard from the previous caller in his case where there's a mask mandate in effect and people are rebelling against it? Have you experienced in past phases where you've been allowing customers to take the masks off? Any complaints about that or anything along those lines?

Miesha: Oh yes. Oh, absolutely. In every direction. I have worn the mask in there myself for nine hour shifts many times, but also like I said, we took the masks off when Cuomo ended the mask mandate at some point. I had people come to the door and look at me and leave. I've had Yelp reviews about us not having a mask on in the store when we were not legally required to have the mask on in the store, but bad reviews related to that. I've had people in the store literally jumping away from each other, looking scared from other customers as if they were about to hit them or something like that. It creates a lot of tension. It creates a lot of stress for the people who are working in the store, for the customers, with each other, and I think it's a huge, huge cost.

That's the one thing I can say. I just really do think that, for whatever benefit we are getting from it, we are paying a price and it's a large one. I think the masks are really a detriment to our society. You know what I mean? I live in a community and I work in a community that got a lot of different people. We've got the Orthodox Jewish community there. We've got the Caribbean community there, and for people to be able to communicate easily with each other and smile at each other is a really important thing, actually.

Brian Lehrer: Last question for you, and of course, a lot of people would disagree with you saying that masks only add a small benefit protection-wise, but the previous caller, the coffee shop owner, brought up the fact that one of his employees I guess lives with somebody who's immunocompromised. Since you don't know who's walking into your store and what their situation or their grandparent who they live with situation or whatever it might be is in terms of immunocompromised or not, or to what degree, does it give you pause about having the position that you've stated that maybe out of general respect, because you don't know who's who and in what circumstance that you as the owner of a public space and controller of the rules in a public space should consider keeping it on?

Miesha: As I said, I've done a lot of masks in the store and I still will put my mask on for certain customers that I do know, because I actually do know personally many, many, many of my customers, and I know a lot of their situations. There are customers that I will mask for, because I know that they appreciate that. I will say that to your point about respect, what is respect to one person is a disrespect to another. While one person might want you to put the change in their hand and another person might want you to put it on the counter-- my wife can only put the change on the counter for the Orthodox Jewish people that come in, but they have to put it in the hand of somebody else and they'll be very offended.

The same goes for masks. Some people will be offended by the mask and will going tofind it a huge disrespect that you're wearing a mask when you're looking at them, and some people will find it as a sign of respect. It's a lot of perspective and more complicated than that, I think, for many people. I try to be very respectful of all my customers. I'm fully vaccinated. I have two young children, one of them is five years old. We got them vaccinated on the very first day that it was available, and I am trying to do everything that I think that I can to be as respectful to everybody. That's my story. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Miesha, thank you so much for your call. I really appreciate it and I hear what you said.

Miesha: Thank you so much for taking in and for this conversation. I really appreciate you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. All right. Back to Sharon Otterman, our guest who covers healthcare and the pandemic for the New York Times Metro desk. Wow. Sharon, I mean maybe there it is in microcosm. Those two very nice, very concerned shop owners, both in Crown Heights who are coming to such different conclusions about what they're going to do in their stores. Did we lose Sharon? I think we lost Sharon. Do you have me?

Sharon Otterman: Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Oh, now we have you Sharon.

Sharon Otterman: Sorry. I went into safe driving mode externally. Yes, no, great. Their callers were great. They really articulated what we're talking about. Just as a listener, I just have empathy for the business owners who have to make this decision. A lot of business owners have said that it's just easier when the government makes decisions, but at the same time, they also want freedom to be able to go according to their own decisions. We're going to see again the business owners have this extra burden of deciding that the rules in their own store. People are going to come to very different conclusions.

I just think that as New Yorkers land people in New Jersey in listening area walk around, just like we saw on these other shifts, you'll see a gradual change. It's not like all of a sudden things change. My Starbucks still says that masks on. It's going to take them I know from experience a week or so to change to wear masks recommended sign. It's this gradual change where people test the waters basically as you do after any storm and see, how does this feel to me? How does this feel to us?

Brian Lehrer: One more call before we run out time, because I mentioned that in New Jersey, governor Murphy is lifting the mask mandate for schools as a state mandate, but individual school districts are now going to have to decide for themselves and anybody who knows New Jersey knows there are 600 school districts in the state of New Jersey. That's a lot of conversations that I guess are just beginning right now. Newark has decided to keep its mask mandate for schools on. Let's see what Glennon in Montclair, who I think is a teacher has to say. Hi, Glen. You're on WNYC.

Glen: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I'm not a teacher, but many of the people in my life who matter the most to me are.

Brian Lehrer: Got it.

Glen: I really just want to the call to ask people to remember their forgotten teachers, students, and families who are in school buildings where there's no mandatory testing, where there's little or no ventilation, and where there's no tracking of vaccination status. Because anytime there's a conversation about how safe schools are and the low transmission rates, it's always based on those three pillars: testing, ventilation, and vaccination. I know teachers in buildings with no forced air ventilation at all teaching through the winter with their windows wide open.

When you're in a situation like that and you don't know how many of your students are vaccinated and there is no mandatory testing, removing masks is a very risky proposition for the teachers, the students, and their families. I would just add since I'm the last caller going back to the first caller who was a teacher, she had mentioned her children seeing people in restaurants on masks. There's a big difference between what people do voluntarily with their families in a place like a restaurant and places where there's mandated congregation like in schools. I think it makes a lot of sense and it's a real teachable moment with people's kids to explain that difference. I think there's a big mistake being made in removing the mask mandate prematurely.

Brian Lehrer: Glen, thank you very much. Sharon, we're just about at a time, but if you've gotten to look around New Jersey school districts yet to see if there's a pattern, does Newark represent cities keeping the mask mandate on for a while and our suburbs more likely to take it off now that governor Murphy is going to allow them to do that? There are 600 school district conversations that are starting today, right?

Sharon Otterman: Yes. I actually don't know. Remember, they're not off till March 7th, so they do have some time. Schools also have to come up with policies. Once masks are off, if a student tests positive in a classroom, how are you handling that? There is some work that has to get done to figure out how school communities will handle COVID. In general, red-leaning districts are going to take the masks off faster than blue-leaning districts. That's just the generality throughout the nation. No, I don't know from school to school yet.

Brian Lehrer: Then I guess we'll have a natural experiment and we'll see through epidemiology if the rates become different as the spring dawns or as the next wave comes, if hopefully there won't be a next wave, but if there is, so we leave it there. Hopefully, listeners, this has been somewhat clarifying about what the new rules are or are going to be in New York and New Jersey, and of course, we've heard that sampling of listener opinion. Sharon Otterman covers healthcare and the pandemic for the New York Times, Metro desk. Sharon, thank you so much.

Sharon Otterman: Thanks so much, Brian. Great to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Much more to come.

 

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