--- title: Philadelphia Revives COVID-19 Mask Mandate description: The reinstatement comes just over a month after the mandate was officially lifted and follows other major U.S. cities. canonical: https://time.com/6165929/philadelphia-mask-mandate-covid-19/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-04-11T21:11:23.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T14:06:44.441Z article:section: Health og:title: Philadelphia Revives Mask Mandate, Following Big-City Peers og:description: Philadelphia is reporting an average of 142 new cases a day, up from 94 on April 4. og:url: https://time.com/6165929/philadelphia-mask-mandate-covid-19/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt442651f40a0a8e6d/698a30d322fb85eb8ee2d592/philadelphia-revives-mask-mandate-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4000 og:image:height: 2250 og:image:alt: Philadelphia Revives Mask Mandate og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Philadelphia Revives Mask Mandate, Following Big-City Peers twitter:description: Philadelphia is reporting an average of 142 new cases a day, up from 94 on April 4. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt442651f40a0a8e6d/698a30d322fb85eb8ee2d592/philadelphia-revives-mask-mandate-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Philadelphia Revives Mask Mandate, Breaking With Big-City Peers > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [Jessica Park/Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Jessica Park/Bloomberg Contributor Apr 11, 2022 9:11 PM UTC  Commuters exit a subway stop at City Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., on Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021. Commuters exit a subway stop at City Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., on Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021. Kriston Jae Bethel—Bloomberg by [Jessica Park/Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Jessica Park/Bloomberg Contributor Apr 11, 2022 9:11 PM UTC Philadelphia is bringing back its indoor mask mandate beginning April 18 after a 50% increase in Covid-19 cases in the past 10 days. The reinstatement is the first among major U.S. cities and comes just over a month after it was officially lifted. A few colleges also have reimposed masking indoors, [including Columbia University and Barnard College](https://covid19.columbia.edu/news/april-11-non-cloth-masks-are-mandatory-classrooms) in New York and George Washington University in Washington. The moves come as U.S. cases have begun to increase again, driven by the highly infectious omicron subvariant BA.2\. Nationally, the seven-day moving average of new cases was 28,169 on April 8, the highest since March 16, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Still, infections remain well below the peak of more than 800,000 reached in January as omicron raged. Philadelphia is reporting an average of 142 new cases a day, up from 94 on April 4\. In New York City, the average of daily cases reported is 1,861, up from 1,572 at the start of April. According to the CDC, which provides county-level data through April 7, Philadelphia County is considered “low risk,” with a case rate of 55.9 per 100,000 people. By comparison, New York County, which encompasses the island of Manhattan in New York City, is at “medium risk” with 238 cases per 100,000. **Read more:** [The New $10 Billion COVID-19 Deal Leaves Uninsured People at Risk](https://time.com/6164491/covid-19-funding-deal-uninsured/) The CDC doesn’t recommend a mask mandate for either level of risk, though it does say people at high risk for severe illness from Covid [should consider wearing masks indoors in medium risk locations.](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/covid-by-county.html) The agency made changes to its recommendations earlier this year to emphasize hospitalizations over case counts, though some public health experts have warned that positive cases are an early indicator that hospitalizations will rise. A lack of funding and recent policy decisions have made it harder for local governments to track the spread of Covid. In some cities, testing centers have shut, while others have started charging for tests with the end of government-subsidized programs. People who use rapid tests to confirm a positive case rarely report their results, giving public health officials little insight into how widespread the virus truly is. Unlike other major cities, Philadelphia left the door open to reintroducing masking when it lifted its mandate. The city said then that it would require masking again if cases had increased by more than 50% in 10 days, average new cases per day were less than 225 and hospitalizations were less than 100. The next level, which would require vaccine proof at restaurants, would be reached when average new cases rise to between 225 and 500, and hospitalizations climb to between 100 and 500. Public-health experts have praised governments who communicated what it would take to require masking again, saying they recognize the virus is likely to ebb and flow. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6165929/philadelphia-mask-mandate-covid-19/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6165929/philadelphia-mask-mandate-covid-19/"},"headline":"Philadelphia Revives Mask Mandate, Breaking With Big-City Peers","datePublished":"2022-04-11T21:11:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T14:06:44.441Z","description":"The move comes as U.S. cases have begun to increase again, driven by the highly infectious omicron subvariant BA.2.","url":"https://time.com/6165929/philadelphia-mask-mandate-covid-19/","keywords":["COVID-19","wire"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt442651f40a0a8e6d/698a30d322fb85eb8ee2d592/philadelphia-revives-mask-mandate-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jessica Park/Bloomberg"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt442651f40a0a8e6d/698a30d322fb85eb8ee2d592/philadelphia-revives-mask-mandate-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Philadelphia Revives Mask Mandate","caption":"Philadelphia Revives Mask Mandate","creditText":"Kriston Jae Bethel—Bloomberg","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/covid-19/","name":"COVID-19"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6165929/philadelphia-mask-mandate-covid-19/","name":"Philadelphia Revives Mask Mandate, Breaking With Big-City Peers"}}]}] ```