By EFE
The city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, became the first large city in the United States on Monday to reimpose the use of masks indoors in the face of the increase in COVID-19 infections, a measure that will take effect in a week.
The city's Health Department reported this measure on social media, which affects schools and daycare centers, businesses, restaurants, and public buildings.
"The mask mandate is tied to COVID-19 response levels, and as cases increase in Philly, we want to protect our most vulnerable residents," the department said on Twitter.
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In early March, the United States considered the wave of the omicron variant to be over, the one with the highest number of infections since the start of the pandemic, and relaxed the use of masks indoors.
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In an appearance before the media this Monday, the head of the city's Health Department, Cheryl Bettigole, defended taking this measure despite acknowledging that the current wave of infections with the BA2 subvariant may be "smaller" than that of the arrival of omicron in January, according to
The New York Times
.
In this sense, he admitted that the average number of new daily cases, at 142 in the last week, is very far from what was recorded at the beginning of the year (4,000), but he stressed that if action is not taken now, knowing that there may be infections that end in hospitalizations or deaths, it will be "too late for many residents."