MA COVID-19 Health Orders End This Week: Here's What Will Change

MASSACHUSETTS — The state's few remaining COVID-19 public health emergency orders will end Thursday, but one pertaining to masks will likely be the biggest deal for residents.

Gov. Maura Healey in mid-March said the state would end the COVID-19 public health emergency on May 11, the same day the federal government's emergency will end. The World Health Organization's global pandemic health emergency ended Friday.

One state order still in effect that will likely be the biggest change for the public: mask requirements in healthcare facilities. That order will go away on May 11, leaving the decision on masking up to individual hospitals, doctor's offices, senior care centers and other similar facilities

Major healthcare centers including Mass General Brigham, Beth Israel Lahey Health and UMass Memorial will go mask-optional by Thursday.

According to state health officials, there are five other provisions that will end, according to the state Department of Public Health:

• Lower staffing levels at out-of-hospital dialysis providers
• Lower ambulance staffing: a single EMT and driver vs. the old minimum of two EMTs
• Authorizing people with lower certification levels to administer prepacked medications in community programs registered with DPH’s Medication Administration Program (MAP).
• Allowing qualified physician assistants in good standing to practice without a designated supervising physician.
• Allowing podiatrists, uncertified medical assistants, phlebotomists, and military combat lifesaver-trained veterans to administer coronavirus vaccines.

Healey has filed legislation to allow the provisions on dialysis centers and MAP program medication administration to continue for six months after May 11. She will seek to make the lower EMT staffing levels permanent.

The end of the federal government's public health emergency may have deeper consequences for the public.

One other pandemic-era program ending soon in Massachusetts: The state closed the final 11 "Stop the Spread" PCR testing sites at the end of March.

Although widespread testing is no longer in place, COVID-19 levels have dropped across the state. Tufts Medical Center reported this week that it had no patients with COVID-19 for the first time since the pandemic began.

The state reported just under 900 new COVID-19 infections for the week ending Thursday, with 172 patients were hospitalized with the virus. The state's seven-day positivity rate was down to 2.46 percent.