Washington's Indoor Mask Mandate Ends March 21: Inslee

OLYMPIA, WA — Washington will remove statewide masking requirements for most public indoor spaces, including schools, on March 21, Gov. Jay Inslee announced Thursday. The governor said the date was chosen as the best prediction for when the level of COVID-19 hospitalizations will decline enough to allow for safely removing the current mandate, which took effect in August.

The statewide vaccine verification requirement for large events will end on March 1.

"We are confident that we are succeeding in experiencing a significant decline of omicron cases in our state and this will allow us, in the upcoming weeks, to take further steps forward in regaining a more normal life in the state of Washington, while still protecting our public health and our family's health," Inslee said. "Obviously, we know we still have to be cautious, because the rate actually remains high today, but this is good news for us to have relief in sight that I am pleased to be able to announce today.

The governor said new projections showed Washington could reach a safe level of COVID-19 hospitalizations within a few weeks, noting that current levels, while below their recent peaks, remain much higher than most other points in the pandemic.

"The number of people entering our hospitals today is still extremely high, continues to put pressures on our hospitals, and unfortunately continues to take lives in our state," Inslee said. "Our goal is to knock down the rates of this infection by taking smart, common sense measures that we know work for the immediate future to knock these numbers down low enough so that hospital admissions get low enough not to jam our hospitals."

Inslee said the mandate's removal would allow for schools across the state to drop masking requirements, along with most public indoor spaces like grocery stores, bars, restaurants and gyms.

"The good news is we are approaching a place, fairly shortly, where we will not have to wear a mask generally in these conditions," he said. "We think this is both good for our health, and [the] education of our children, and the total reopening of our economy."

Masks will still be required in certain sectors, like health care settings and correctional facilities, and a separate federal rule still requires masks on all public transit, including metro buses. Business owners and local health jurisdictions will retain the authority to voluntarily keep their own masking rules, along with school districts who choose to do so.

King County evaluating the 'appropriate time' to lift local masking order

The governor's mask announcement arrived one day after King County officials said they would end the vaccination verification policy on March 1, removing the requirement for restaurants, bars, theaters and other venues to check their customers' vaccine status before allowing them to participate in indoor activities.

However, Public Health - Seattle & King County said Thursday it would independently monitor metrics to determine when the local masking order would be lifted.

"[King County] will continue to evaluate the appropriate time to lift the local indoor mask order by considering number and severity of COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations, deaths, as well as the ability for hospitals and the healthcare system to manage patient load," the agency wrote on Twitter. "If cases and hospitalizations continue to fall and our hospitals recover and stabilize, as we all hope they will, it is reasonable that we will be at a place to lift the local indoor mask mandate, but we are not there yet. We will keep watching the numbers closely and will reassess in the coming weeks. Until then, we need to continue to use multiple layers of protection, including wearing high-quality, well-fitting masks while COVID-19 continues to spread at high levels."

Washington will follow in the footsteps of other states, including New York, which lifted its indoor mask mandate earlier this month, and California, which relaxed its masking policies Wednesday. Oregon is following a similar path to Washington, and Gov. Kate Brown said her indoor mask requirements would remain in place while hospitalization rates remained high, but expire no later than March 31.

Inslee said he understood people were anxious for things to get back to normal but cautioned that removing the masking requirements sooner would not be prudent.

"It's been a long, long journey," he said. "I know people would want to say it's totally over today, or at three o'clock this afternoon, and that would not be consistent with where the science is right now. I do understand the urgency, the desire, to do this today. It would not be safe to do this today."

Watch the full news conference below: