Local Governments Lift Mask Mandates Following CDC Guidance As COVID-19 Cases Trend Downward

Some local governments in Wisconsin began lifting mask mandates on Friday after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dropped mask-wearing requirements for fully vaccinated individuals in most situations on Thursday. The move comes as Wisconsin has seen a decline in new COVID-19 cases.

Health officials in Rock and La Crosse counties were among those who ended mask orders Friday while asking people to follow CDC guidelines to wear masks in health care, school, and correctional settings.

“According to the CDC Federal Mask Requirement, everyone must still wear masks on planes, buses, trains, and other forms of public transportation. There may also be other federal, local, and facility requirements in place that everyone should continue to follow,” said Katrina Harwood, Rock County’s health officer, in a release.

The updated guidance has come as research shows COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing the spread of the coronavirus, as well as hospitalization and death from contracting the disease. In a statement, Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Karen Timberlake called the new guidance “an exciting step forward.”

“The science is clear: if you are fully vaccinated, you are protected, and you can start doing the things that you stopped doing because of the pandemic,” said Timberlake. “For vaccinated people, this means returning to the Wisconsin way of life we all enjoy.”

Many states were lifting mask orders in light of the updated guidance, but Wisconsin’s mask mandate had already been struck down by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in late March.

New reports of COVID-19 cases ticked up slightly Friday with 513 new cases, but new cases have been largely on the decline since a mid-April spike of more than 800 per day on average. The average for the past seven days was 444 daily cases.

There were 3,625 negative tests reported Friday.

As COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin continue to trend downward, more of the state’s residents are being vaccinated against the disease.

A total of 4,817,417 doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered in Wisconsin as of Friday, with 77.8 percent of Wisconsinites age 65 and up fully vaccinated.

As of Friday, 2,263,607 people in Wisconsin, or 38.9 percent of the population, have been fully vaccinated.

Increasing rates of vaccination have provided a sense of hope after a yearlong pandemic that has claimed the lives of 6,954 people in Wisconsin. There was one new death from COVID-19 reported Friday.

Other DHS data from Friday include:

• 605,376 total cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began.
• 3,503,761 total tests administered, 2,898,385 of which have been negative since the pandemic began.
• 30,124 people have been hospitalized because of the disease, or 5 percent of all positive cases, since the pandemic began.
• Daily testing capacity remains at 59,273, though only 4,138 new test results were reported Friday.

Coronavirus rates vary from county to county. In order to track COVID-19 activity levels, DHS looks at the number of new cases per a county’s population over a 14-day period — and whether there’s an upward or downward trend in new cases. Activity levels range from “very high,” “high,” “medium,” to “low.”

As of Wednesday, DHS data showed the state had two counties — Polk and St. Croix — with a “very high” level, while the majority of Wisconsin counties had “high” levels of activity. There were growing case trajectories in one county and shrinking trajectories in right. Wisconsin’s overall COVID-19 activity level is “high.”

For more about COVID-19, visit Coronavirus in Wisconsin.

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