SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4)- Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed House Bill 294, also known as the ‘COVID-19 endgame bill’ on Wednesday afternoon.
The signing of the bill will effectively lift Utah’s mask mandate on April 10.
The bill, sponsored by Rep Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, and Sen. Derrin Owens also declares Utah’s pandemic and its restrictions over – either on July 1 or when the state reaches a 14-day case rate of fewer than 191 per 100,000 people, the seven-day average of intensive care unit capacity falls below 15%, or when the state has allocated at least 1.6 million doses of the vaccine.
Cox’s signing of the bill comes as no surprise as the governor has previously stated he would sign the bill when it came across his desk.
According to Utah Department of Health spokesperson Tom Hudachko, there are some strings attached to this bill.
“Masks will still be required in K-12 school settings. They can still be required in gatherings of 50 or more people; businesses can still choose to require their patrons to wear masks and individuals themselves can obviously choose on their own to wear a mask,” Hudachko explains.
