KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On Friday, Kansas City area jurisdictions began peeling away their pandemic health guidelines in order to better align with new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance.
Thursday, the CDC issued new guidance that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask indoors. Masks are still required on public transit.
That night, Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas said an update to the city's order would be coming to avoid confusion between the current health order and the new guidance.
He held a press conference Friday morning to announce the changes.
Those changes include rescinding the mask mandate and emergency order in their entirety.
"How can you regulate and enforce a mask mandate that is only applied to unvaccinated persons when they may be in the same area?" Lucas asked.
He said that "regrettably" the most prudent option was to rescind the orders entirely after 14 months.
Businesses and schools will still have the ability to create and enforce their own regulations, but the city now has no way to enforce any health guidelines.
The mayor emphasized respect from patrons visiting businesses that ask them to wear a mask.
Lucas and Kansas City, Missouri, Health Department Director Dr. Rex Archer both emphasized that now, the most important thing is for the unvaccinated members of the community to get the vaccine.
Archer explained that with the variants of the COVID-19 virus, fully vaccinated individuals can still get the virus, but they are not likely to become seriously ill or be hospitalized.
A lot of times those people will not know they are sick and can pass that on.
Archer said that won't be much of an issue for those who are vaccinated, because they won't get seriously ill. However, it's now an issue for unvaccinated people who choose not to wear a mask.
"They now really, really need to get vaccinated because before, we had other ways to protect them, and those are going away now," he said.
Archer also emphasized respecting people who ask for masks to be worn around them, as some people may have immune deficiencies or have children at home who cannot yet be vaccinated.
"You don't really know what that other person's background is," he said.
There are many opportunities for Kansas City residents to get vaccinated both by appointment and by walk-in availability.
The Kansas City health guidelines and emergency order is rescinded as of noon on Friday.
