NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — On Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that New York State is requiring people to wear masks in all indoor public places as a way to address the winter COVID-19 surge.
Following the announcement, local politicians have reacted to the mandate, including Niagara County Legislature Chairman Becky Wydysh. Back in November, Niagara County took heat from Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz for not implementing a mask mandate as cases surged in the region.
Wydysh issued the following statement about the new statewide mask mandate:
"Niagara County has said right along that we believe it is advisable for people to wear masks indoors, especially when social distancing is not possible, as part of a multi-layered COVID-19 mitigation strategy, but that a mandate was not the best approach nor the enforcement of such a mandate the best use of our resources.
"Today, Governor Hochul has instituted a statewide indoor mask mandate through January 15 but how the state intends to enforce this mandate is not clear. To the extent that we are asked to take part in any sort of enforcement of Governor Hochul’s mask mandate, we will be taking an educate to cooperate approach.
"In Niagara County, we will continue to focus our county resources on vaccinations, contact tracing, testing and working to keep kids in school. As a matter of fact, we held five vaccination clinics this week. We continue to seek more testing resources from the state, including reopening the free testing site at NCCC, because we believe identifying and isolating those who test positive is the greatest need right now to reduce the spread."
Poloncarz also issued the following statement on the new mandate:
"With new COVID-19 cases rapidly increasing across New York State, I commend Governor Hochul for following Erie County's lead and implementing a statewide mask requirement for all indoor public locations, or, alternatively, permitting the business to choose to implement a vaccine mandate for all persons entering the premises. The COVID-19 virus does not respect county or other municipal boundaries. In order to respond to the growing regional and statewide threat, unified action is needed. I thank the governor for taking that action by implementing an indoor mask requirement because, the facts are clear, wearing a mask can help stop the transmission and further spread of COVID-19."
The new mask requirement officially goes into effect on Dec. 13 and will continue until Jan. 15, 2022. Following Jan. 15, Hochul says the state will re-evaluate the mandate based on conditions at that time.