September 28, 2022 - New York City is entering its third pandemic winter with the least amount of public health rules in place since COVID-19 prompted a citywide shutdown in March 2020.

Mayor Eric Adams rescinded the vaccine requirements for private employers and for public school students participating in extracurricular activities. Gov. Kathy Hochul this month ended the mask requirement for public transit. 

New Yorkers can largely go about their lives as though, as President Joe Biden said recently, “The pandemic is over.”

Adams faced questions Tuesday from reporters on how the city will prevent COVID-19 transmission in the temporary tent shelters that will house newly arrived migrants. Adams did not offer specifics, but said that the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, would address the public health needs and would hold a briefing on COVID-19. 

“People's sense of risk is down and I think that's a good thing, and it should be reported as a good thing,” Vasan said. “People aren't as scared of COVID because fewer people are dying, fewer people are getting hospitalized, and that's a product of all of us collectively getting boosted, doing the right things, wearing masks during the worst of this.”

Read more here.

Source: <https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2022/09/27/as-city-relaxes-covid-19-rules--health-experts-urge-masking-to-slow-a-next-wave>