Sunday marked the top of one other COVID-era restriction — Latest York state isn’t any longer requiring masks to enter hospitals and nursing homes.
“We’re in a period of transition … COVID is a treatable, preventable disease,” said acting state Health Commissioner James McDonald while announcing the change in policy.
This development comes on the heels of Mayor Adams ending the vaccine mandate for city employees last week.
But while these are significant signs that the Big Apple has returned to its pre-COVID establishment, there remain stubborn holdouts with regards to face coverings. The world can have moved on — but that’s not the case in some corners of NYC.
Latest York City’s public hospitals will still require masks, as will pockets of Gotham’s culture sector.
Last July, Broadway tossed its mask mandate, but some off-Broadway venues haven’t.
The Public Theater has a couple of performances, which require a mask.
The Atlantic Theatre Company still requires all students, employees and audience members to be masked, in line with its site, and didn’t reply to The Post’s request for comment.
Others resembling the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Public Theater have arrived at a compromise on the divisive issue. They put aside a couple of performances every week for masked audiences only, and for the remaining of the shows leave it as much as the person.
A theater vet working on multiple Broadway and off-Broadway shows said these theater rules have helped bring jittery culture vultures back into the fold and buying tickets again.
“While the industry definitely anticipates a time when we will all go maskless, we’re in favor of anything that makes the valued theatergoer feel comfortable attending a show, and — on this day-and-age — wearing a mask makes a solid portion of the audience feel more comfortable,” the source told The Post.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater also still insists upon masks.
“For the security of everyone within the constructing, all dancers, students, faculty, musicians and staff are at all times required to wear a mask at school and in public spaces,” reads a press release on its website. (An Alvin Ailey representative didn’t return a call from The Post inquiring concerning the policy.)
And a handful of small businesses are still exercising their discretion to uphold their COVID-era rules.
At Community Bookstore, which has two outposts in Brooklyn, masks are mandatory to browse for books, an worker confirmed, noting that some employees and customers are immunocompromised.
Earlier this month, “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert drew widespread mockery across social media after a camera pan to his audience showed they were all masked up.
Colbert’s show requires its studio audience on the Ed Sullivan Theater to “be fully vaccinated and supply in-person verification of vaccination,” in line with the official website used to order tickets. As for masking, the show ties its policy to the “community risk level” for Manhattan as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“When Latest York County is in a medium or high community risk level, in line with the CDC, masks covering your nose and mouth are required in any respect times within the theater,” its policy states.
Critics savaged Colbert’s COVID code.
Clay Travis, the founding father of sports news site Outkick, labeled the masked attendees “smug anti-science losers” whose “brains are broken.” One other Twitter user quipped: “I’m getting the sense that masks for the left have develop into much like open carry for the correct.”
— additional reporting by Johnny Oleksinski
