By MIKE CATAL­I­NI-As­so­ci­at­ed Press

TREN­TON, N.J. (AP) — The gov­er­nors of four states an­nounced plans Mon­day to lift statewide mask re­quire­ments in schools by the end of Feb­ru­ary or March, cit­ing the rapid eas­ing of COVID-19′s omi­cron surge.

The de­ci­sions in Con­necti­cut, Delaware, New Jer­sey and Ore­gon were an­nounced as state and lo­cal gov­ern­ments grap­ple with which virus re­stric­tions to jet­ti­son and which ones to keep in place. The changes al­so come amid a grow­ing sense that the virus is nev­er go­ing to go away and Amer­i­cans need to find a way to co­ex­ist with it.

New Jer­sey Gov. Phil Mur­phy called the move “a huge step back to nor­mal­cy for our kids” and said in­di­vid­ual school dis­tricts will be free to con­tin­ue re­quir­ing masks af­ter the state man­date ends March 7.

Mean­while, Cal­i­for­nia an­nounced plans to end its in­door mask­ing re­quire­ment for vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple next week, but masks will still be the rule for school­child­ren in the na­tion’s most pop­u­lous state.

The four states are among a dozen with mask man­dates in schools, ac­cord­ing to the non­par­ti­san Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for State Health Pol­i­cy. New Jer­sey’s re­quire­ment has been in place since class­es re­sumed in per­son in Sep­tem­ber 2020.

Mur­phy cit­ed the “dra­mat­ic de­cline in our COVID num­bers” in an­nounc­ing the roll­back. The omi­cron vari­ant fu­eled a spike in in­fec­tions over the hol­i­days, but cas­es in the state are down 50% and hos­pi­tal­iza­tions dropped off by one-third since last week, he said.

“We are not — and I’ve said this many times — go­ing to man­age COVID to ze­ro,” the gov­er­nor said. “We have to learn how to live with COVID as we move from a pan­dem­ic to an en­dem­ic phase of this virus.”

Con­necti­cut Gov. Ned La­m­ont rec­om­mend­ed end­ing the statewide man­date in schools and child care cen­ters on Feb. 28. Delaware Gov. John Car­ney said his state’s school mask man­date will run through March.

Ore­gon’s mask re­quire­ments for schools will be lift­ed March 31. The statewide mask re­quire­ment for in­door pub­lic places will be lift­ed no lat­er than the end of March, health of­fi­cials an­nounced.

Dr. Dean Sidelinger, the state med­ical of­fi­cer and epi­demi­ol­o­gist, said ed­u­ca­tion and health of­fi­cials will meet in the com­ing weeks to re­vise guid­ance to “en­sure schools can con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing safe­ly and keep stu­dents in class” once the mask rule is lift­ed.

The March 31 dead­line was se­lect­ed us­ing pre­dic­tions by health sci­en­tists that COVID-19-re­lat­ed hos­pi­tal­iza­tions will de­crease to 400 or few­er by that time — a lev­el that Ore­gon ex­pe­ri­enced be­fore the omi­cron vari­ant surge.

In Cal­i­for­nia, un­vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple will still be re­quired to be masked in­doors af­ter Feb. 15, and every­one will have to wear masks in high­er-risk ar­eas such as pub­lic tran­sit and nurs­ing homes and oth­er con­gre­gate liv­ing fa­cil­i­ties, state of­fi­cials said. Lo­cal gov­ern­ments can con­tin­ue their own in­door mask­ing re­quire­ments.

State of­fi­cials al­so an­nounced that in­door “mega events” with more than 1,000 peo­ple will have to re­quire vac­ci­na­tions or neg­a­tive tests, and those who are un­vac­ci­nat­ed will be re­quired to wear masks. For out­door events with more than 10,000 peo­ple, there is no vac­ci­na­tion re­quire­ment, but masks or neg­a­tive tests will be rec­om­mend­ed.

The de­bate over masks in schools has been po­lar­iz­ing in much of the U.S., with par­ents protest­ing at school board meet­ings and slates of can­di­dates — pro- and an­ti-mask — seek­ing school board seats in an at­tempt to shape poli­cies.

White House press sec­re­tary Jen Psa­ki said Mon­day that uni­ver­sal mask-wear­ing in schools “still re­mains our rec­om­men­da­tion,” but she did not fault states for drop­ping the re­quire­ment.

“It’s al­ways been up to school dis­tricts. That’s al­ways been our point of view and al­ways been our pol­i­cy from here,” she said.

Eight Re­pub­li­can-led states, in­clud­ing Flori­da and Texas, have bans on school mask man­dates, though some have been sus­pend­ed amid le­gal fights with dis­tricts and par­ents who want to re­quire masks, ac­cord­ing to the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for State Health Pol­i­cy.

In Illi­nois, where a judge last week struck down De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Gov. J.B. Pritzk­er’s statewide school mask man­date, the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic at­tor­ney gen­er­al said Mon­day he will ap­peal the rul­ing. The Chica­go school sys­tem, where teach­ers re­cent­ly re­fused to hold in-per­son class­es un­til an agree­ment was reached on safe­ty mea­sures, in­clud­ing pro­vid­ing KN95 masks to stu­dents and staff, said the rul­ing doesn’t ap­ply and the na­tion’s third-largest dis­trict will con­tin­ue to re­quire masks.

Mur­phy faced pres­sure from Re­pub­li­cans and some par­ents who have held ral­lies at the state­house de­mand­ing an end to the man­date. But the gov­er­nor has had sup­port for the mask rule from the New Jer­sey Ed­u­ca­tion As­so­ci­a­tion, the state’s biggest teach­ers union.

In a state­ment, the union not­ed that trends show COVID-19 head­ing in the right di­rec­tion, and added: “It is ap­pro­pri­ate for Gov. Mur­phy to al­low lo­cal dis­tricts to con­tin­ue to re­quire mask­ing in com­mu­ni­ties where that is pru­dent based on lo­cal con­di­tions.”

Na­tion­wide, new COVID-19 cas­es per day have plunged by more than a half-mil­lion since mid-Jan­u­ary, when they hit a record-shat­ter­ing peak of more than 800,000. Cas­es have been de­clin­ing in 47 states over the past two weeks, ac­cord­ing to da­ta from Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty.

Al­so, the num­ber of Amer­i­cans in the hos­pi­tal with COVID-19 has fall­en 28% since mid-Jan­u­ary to about 111,000.

Deaths are still run­ning high at more than 2,400 per day on av­er­age, the most since last win­ter, re­flect­ing a lag be­tween when vic­tims be­come in­fect­ed and when they die.

In New Jer­sey, it is un­clear how many and how soon the state’s 600-plus school dis­tricts might end the wear­ing of masks.

In Pa­ter­son, the state’s third-biggest city, the school sys­tem will take time to con­sult with ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials, prin­ci­pals, par­ents and staff, said dis­trict spokesper­son Paul Brubak­er.

Melis­sa Al­fieri-Collins, a moth­er of two who dis­agrees with mask man­dates in schools, say­ing she prefers “choice,” called the gov­er­nor’s de­ci­sion good news. But she raised con­cern that dis­tricts might keep mask rules in place.

“For this rea­son, par­ents need an opt-out op­tion for when and if dis­tricts do this,” she said.

Con­necti­cut will al­so al­low school dis­tricts to re­tain the man­date. It’s un­clear if Delaware will fol­low suit, but the gov­er­nor said he want­ed to give school dis­tricts time to con­sid­er a lo­cal man­date.

Stephen White, a 55-year-old fa­ther of a 14-year-old son, said that if the lift­ing of the man­date were to take ef­fect im­me­di­ate­ly, he wouldn’t be in fa­vor of it. But four weeks from now is a dif­fer­ent sto­ry.

“By that time pe­ri­od, if the rates are go­ing down and they can say that ‘OK, kids are vac­ci­nat­ed’ — if they have a sub­stan­tial amount of kids that are vac­ci­nat­ed — I don’t have a prob­lem with them not wear­ing a mask at school,” he said.

Fran­cis Amegah, a 63-year-old with two chil­dren in the Newark school dis­trict, said the end of the man­date is “well over­due.”

“They shouldn’t be wear­ing masks. If some­thing hap­pens, we’ll be able to han­dle that. The par­ents should be able to take care of that,” he said.

Re­pub­li­cans claimed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for push­ing the gov­er­nor to end the man­date.

“Gov. Mur­phy will nev­er ad­mit that the pres­sure is get­ting to him, but it ab­solute­ly is,” GOP Sen­ate Leader Steve Oro­ho said.

As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Sara Bur­nett in Chica­go; Su­san Haigh in Hart­ford, Con­necti­cut; and video jour­nal­ist Ted Shaf­frey in Mont­clair, New Jer­sey, con­tributed to this re­port.