Ed Day was heading into work Friday morning when he got a heads up from his staff: New York governor Kathy Hochul was re-instituting a statewide mask mandate to slow the spread of the new Omicron coronavirus variant.
She officially announced the new mandate that day during a press conference.
Hochul never reached out to county leaders to ask for their advice before re-instituting the mandate, Day said, and her staff didn't have answers to many of Day's questions.
Day, the county executive in Rockland County – part of New York's Hudson Valley – said in an interview with National Review that the rollout was handled "improperly," and it smacked of former governor Andrew Cuomo's top-down, autocratic style.
"Organizations don't run by press conferences," said Day, one of at least five Republican county executives who have announced that they will not enforce the mandate. "Don't put out a press release, and worse still, do the press release before we even know about it."
It's been four months since Hochul took the helm of New York's state government after Cuomo's resignation in August. Upon taking office, Hochul, whose political career started in local New York government, vowed that she was intent on "changing the culture of Albany" and empowering local officials with clear guidance from public-health experts. Local leaders, she told the New York Times, would "be liberated to do what they do best." To many local government leaders, Hochul was "one of us."
Day and MaryEllen Odell, the county executive of Putnam County, both said the way Hochul re-instituted the mandate seemed instead to be a return to Cuomo's playbook. Odell also has announced that she is not enforcing the mandate, which went into effect on Monday.
"We found it to be disappointing that the governor, after stating to all of us early on when she took office that because she had come from local government, that she understood that the way things were being handled before was not respectful, and she would be working closer with us," Odell told National Review. "We realized at this point in time that we're not going to be treated any differently."
Day, a retired New York Police Department lieutenant, said Hochul's staff was unable to explain the metrics they would be using to gauge whether the mandate has been successful and to decide if it needs to be extended beyond January 15. "Common sense tells us, if they're doing this right, they should know that," Day said. "They should have a general range of what the goal is. They had no idea. That's not professional. That's not the way you run things."
He called Hochul's decision to have the mandate enforced by local health departments "a non-starter." Sending civilian inspectors into bars, restaurants, stores, and other public places to pester people about masks and to dole out business fines of up to $1,000 was a recipe for trouble. And it would mean pulling resources away from the county's vaccination and booster efforts, Day said.
"You're asking me to turn around and take health department officials, many who are either helping to set up clinics or actually administering vaccines to get our vaccination rates up to where you want them to go, which we all agree, take them off that to go out and do this mask-police nonsense?" Day asked. "That is a complete waste of resources."
Odell said it is "unrealistic" to expect local governments to enforce the mandate and to impose $1,000 fines on local businesses. "It's just not what we do," she said.
In a message to local governments, the New York State Department of Health leaders said they expected to the mask mandate "to be largely self-enforcing," because "New Yorkers will understand the importance of following this requirement." On Monday, Hochul acknowledged that the state is leaving it up to the counties to enforce the mandate, "and we expect that they will, and we hope that they will." She said some county executives have asked for a re-instated statewide mask mandate so they will have "air cover" enforcing their own mandates.
"I don't want air cover. I'm a big boy," Day said. "I want help from the state when we need it. I don't want intrusions into what I'm trying to do. I don't want them telling me how to run my government locally here in Rockland County."
Odell said local businesses already are hurting from the pandemic, forced shutdowns, a labor shortage, sky-high inflation, and supply-chain issues.
"They have enough on their plate," she said. "When you're struggling to begin with to keep your lights on and your doors open, a $1,000 fine could make or break your month."
Both Day and Odell said the residents of their communities have taken the coronavirus seriously. According to the Center for Disease Control & Prevention, 85.3 percent of residents 18 and older in Rockland County have received at least one vaccination shot. In Putnam it is even higher, 87 percent, according to the CDC. In both counties, 95 percent of residents 65 and older have received at least one shot.
Both counties have seen slight increases in coronavirus cases recently, but deaths from the virus have remained low (there have been none in Putnam County over the last week, according to the CDC), and hospitalizations are nowhere near last winter's peak.
Odell said what they're doing in Putnam County is working.
"If there are communities, their numbers are higher and they're spiking, I would suggest [Hochul] speak with them specifically," said Odell, who argued against a one-size-fits-all approach to combatting the virus in New York. "I'm not really quite sure why she thinks what is good for one county is good for the entire state."
New York is not the only blue state that has re-instituted a mask mandate. Washington, Oregon, Illinois, New Mexico, Nevada, and Hawaii also have mandates. This week, California instituted a mandate that went into effect on Wednesday and will remain in effect until January 15.
However, in Colorado, the state's Democratic governor, Jared Polis, recently told Colorado Public Radio that he won't be implementing another mask mandate, because he considers the Covid-19 emergency "over."
"Everybody had more than enough opportunity to get vaccinated," Polis said on Friday. "Frankly, people who want to be protected [have gotten vaccinated]. Those who get sick, it's almost entirely their own darn fault."
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