NH is Dropping the Mask Mandate as of Friday, April 16

Governor Sununu had a press conference today at 3pm on WMUR to provide a public health update.

The press conference started with the virus numbers.  There are 552 new cases here in NH as of today, April 15.  43% of NH population has been vaccinated with one shot and 25% are fully vaccinated.

They did address The Johnson & Johnson vaccine that had  6 cases of blood clots as a side affect.   They reassured the residents that there are 7 million people in the U. S. and 6 cases is not a big number.   The CDC is currently reviewing these events and it's recommended that the J&J vaccine is put on pause.  There are currently 10,000-12,000 doses here in NH of the J&J vaccine.

The Governor said 120,000 available appointments in the State's vaccination website.  On April 19, 2021, NH is opening up the website to everyone, no matter where you are from, not just residents of NH.

Starting on Monday, 4/19, school children will return to in-person learning 5 days a week.  The CDC said it was safe and the Governor feels that it is the right thing to do for the kids.

This Friday, NH's mask mandate is set to expire.  NH will NOT re-new the mask mandate.  The state will encourage people to wear masks, but the mask mandate will be lifted as of tomorrow, Friday, April 16.

The Governor also said that NH will transition to "Universal Best Practices for Businesses" by May 7th.

The Governor also said that "the pandemic is not over and we are not declaring victory, by any means."

Tomorrow, Train and I will be talking to the Governor on the Shark Morning show.  We will follow up with another article.