President Joe Biden calls for mask mandates to stay in place

Did President Joe Biden issue a national mask mandate?

Not quite. But the president is pleading with state and local leaders to maintain — and even reinstate — their regulations to require mask-wearing as coronavirus cases in America begin to rise.

“I’m reiterating my call for every governor, mayor and local leader to maintain and reinstate the mask mandate,” Biden said in remarks to the nation on Monday afternoon.

• “Please, this is not politics. Reinstate the mandate if you let it down. And business(es) should require masks as well. The failure to take this virus seriously, precisely what got us in this mess in the first place, risks more cases and more deaths,” Biden said.
• “Mask up. It’s a patriotic duty. It’s the only way we ever get back to normal — to cheer together in stadiums full of fans, to gather together on holidays again safely, go to graduations, weddings,” the president added.

Biden said he and the White House “share the sentiment” of Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky of an “impending doom” upon the country as cases and deaths are again on the rise.

• Biden warned that the “war against COVID-19 is far from won” and that by relaxing pandemic precautions, the country is “giving up hard-fought, hard-won gains.”
• “And as much as we are doing, America, it is time to do even more. All of us have to do our part, every one of us,” Biden said.

Utah state lawmakers passed legislation earlier this year that will lift Utah’s mask mandate on April 10. Gov. Spencer Cox signed the bill into law.

• The pandemic “endgame bill ... leaves mask requirements in place for schools and groups larger than 50,” the Deseret News reported.
• The bill also establishes benchmarks to lift all Utah coronavirus restriction and “ends all COVID-19 restrictions on state and local levels by July 1, even if those benchmarks haven’t been met,” according to the Deseret News.