Mask Mandate Returns Saturday At 12:01 A.M. In Montgomery County

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD — The indoor mask mandate will return in Montgomery County on Saturday at 12:01 a.m., due to a rise in COVID-19 cases. The mandate was lifted at the end of October following seven consecutive days of moderate transmission of coronavirus. The Board of Health voted it would be reinstated if there were seven consecutive days of substantial transmission.

Substantial transmission is defined by the CDC as 50 to 99 cases per 100,000 people in a seven-day period. James Bridgers, the acting health officer in Montgomery County, notified the County Council on Tuesday that they had reached that point, triggering the reinstatement of the mandate.

Initially, the mandate stated that the indoor mask requirement would come back whenever the county reached substantial transmission. The Board of Health voted to change that and institute the seven-consecutive-days rule to prevent a constant back and forth if small changes in case counts moved the county into substantial or moderate transmission for only a day or two.

"We all want to avoid the yo-yo effect of rapidly requiring and repealing a mask mandate, which leads to a lot of public confusion," said Hucker a few days before the Board voted earlier this month.

See the COVID-19 data for Montgomery County here.