SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Friday, Salt Lake City mayor Erin Mendenhall announced she had issued a mask order in the city’s K-12 schools as the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus spreads.
Mendenhall said she used her emergency powers to issue the order and that she plans to work with health officials to determine when it can be lifted.
“As Mayor it is my responsibility to do everything I can to keep our City, and our school district, from going down the tragic and dangerous path many others are already on,” Mendenhall, a Democrat, said in a statement.
The order comes a week after the Salt Lake County Council overturned a school mask order for kids under 12 that the county’s top health official issued. Mendenhall said the majority of board members had privately told her that they feared retaliation and urged her to issue the order.
Masks were required in classrooms last year, but under a new state law, school mask mandates are now banned. Local health departments can issue a rule but only with the support from elected county leaders, and anti-mask advocates have been vocal in their opposition.
