By SARA BUR­NETT | AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

(AP) — The na­tion’s lead­ing health of­fi­cials said Wednes­day that the U.S. is mov­ing clos­er to the point that COVID-19 is no longer a “con­stant cri­sis” as more cities, busi­ness­es and sports venues be­gan lift­ing pan­dem­ic re­stric­tions around the coun­try.

Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion Di­rec­tor Dr. Rochelle Walen­sky said dur­ing a White House brief­ing that the gov­ern­ment is con­tem­plat­ing a change to its mask guid­ance in the com­ing weeks. Not­ing re­cent de­clines in COVID-19 cas­es, hos­pi­tal ad­mis­sions and deaths, she ac­knowl­edged “peo­ple are so ea­ger” for health of­fi­cials to ease mask­ing rules and oth­er mea­sures de­signed to stop the spread of the coro­n­avirus.

“We all share the same goal – to get to a point where COVID-19 is no longer dis­rupt­ing our dai­ly lives, a time when it won’t be a con­stant cri­sis – rather some­thing we can pre­vent, pro­tect against, and treat,” Walen­sky said.

With the omi­cron vari­ant wan­ing and Amer­i­cans ea­ger to move be­yond the virus, gov­ern­ment and busi­ness lead­ers have been out ahead of the CDC in end­ing virus mea­sures in the last week, in­clud­ing or­der­ing work­ers back to of­fices, elim­i­nat­ing mask man­dates and no longer re­quir­ing proof of vac­cine to get in­to restau­rants, bars and sports and en­ter­tain­ment are­nas.

The ef­forts have been gain­ing more steam each day.

Philadel­phia of­fi­cials on Wednes­day said the city’s vac­cine man­date for restau­rants was im­me­di­ate­ly lift­ed, though in­door mask man­dates re­main in place for now. At Dis­ney World, vac­ci­nat­ed guests will no longer have to wear masks at the Flori­da theme park start­ing Thurs­day. Pro­fes­sion­al sports teams in­clud­ing the Utah Jazz and Wash­ing­ton Wiz­ards and Cap­i­tals have stopped re­quir­ing proof of vac­cine for fans.

The most pop­u­lous coun­ty in Wash­ing­ton — where Seat­tle is lo­cat­ed — an­nounced Wednes­day it will no longer re­quire COVID vac­ci­na­tion checks to en­ter restau­rants, bars, the­aters and gyms be­gin­ning March 1.

Health Com­mis­sion­er Cheryl Bet­tigole said Philadel­phia’s av­er­age dai­ly case count had dropped to 189 cas­es per day in the city of more than 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple. Bet­tigole said the plunge in in­fec­tions has been steep­er in Philadel­phia than else­where in the state or the coun­try, mak­ing it eas­i­er to lift the vac­cine man­date for restau­rants and oth­er busi­ness­es an­nounced in mid-De­cem­ber and that just ful­ly went in­to ef­fect this month.

“Our goal has al­ways been to the least re­stric­tive as pos­si­ble while en­sur­ing safe­ty,” she said.

In Province­town, Mass­a­chu­setts, a sea­side town that be­came a COVID hot spot with an ear­ly out­break of the delta vari­ant last sum­mer, of­fi­cials on Tues­day lift­ed a mask man­date and vac­cine re­quire­ment for in­door spaces like restau­rants and bars. Town Man­ag­er Alex Morse said the com­mu­ni­ty of about 3,000 record­ed ze­ro ac­tive cas­es last week among Province­town res­i­dents — some­thing that hasn’t hap­pened since the surge fol­low­ing last year’s Ju­ly 4 cel­e­bra­tions.

“We are learn­ing to live with, and mit­i­gate, the im­pact of the virus on our com­mu­ni­ty,” Morse said.

COVID-19 in­fec­tions and hos­pi­tal­iza­tions have fall­en sharply in the U.S., with the sev­en-day rolling av­er­age for dai­ly new cas­es drop­ping from about 453,000 two weeks ago to about 136,000 as of Tues­day, ac­cord­ing to da­ta from Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty. Hos­pi­tal­iza­tions are at lev­els sim­i­lar to Sep­tem­ber, when the U.S. was emerg­ing from the delta vari­ant surge. Al­most 65% of Amer­i­cans are ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed.

“As a re­sult of all this progress and the tools we now have, we are mov­ing to a time where COVID isn’t a cri­sis but is some­thing we can pro­tect against and treat,” said Jeff Zients, the White House coro­n­avirus re­sponse co­or­di­na­tor.

Walen­sky said the CDC “will soon put guid­ance in place that is rel­e­vant and en­cour­ages pre­ven­tion mea­sures when they are most need­ed to pro­tect pub­lic health and our hos­pi­tals.” She sug­gest­ed any changes will take in­to ac­count mea­sures of com­mu­ni­ty trans­mis­sion, as well as hos­pi­tal­iza­tion rates or oth­er gauges of whether in­fect­ed peo­ple are be­com­ing se­vere­ly ill. They al­so would con­sid­er avail­able bed space in hos­pi­tals.

Sev­er­al states with in­door mask man­dates an­nounced last week they would be lift­ed in com­ing weeks, al­so cit­ing promis­ing num­bers.

Two mu­sic fes­ti­vals that draw thou­sands of peo­ple to the Cal­i­for­nia desert town of In­dio in April and May, Coachel­la and Stage­coach, al­so said this week there will be no vac­ci­na­tion, mask­ing or test­ing man­dates in ac­cor­dance with lo­cal guide­lines. Coachel­la al­so not­ed that could change along with COVID con­di­tions.

In Philadel­phia, Bet­tigole said the vac­cine man­date helped spur “a very large” in­crease in pe­di­atric vac­ci­na­tions, push­ing the city way ahead of the na­tion­al av­er­age for first dos­es among kids ages 5 to 11. More than 53% of Philadel­phia res­i­dents in that age group have re­ceived a first dose, com­pared to clos­er to 30% na­tion­al­ly, she said.

Not all busi­ness­es plan to im­me­di­ate­ly change course. Philadel­phia Irish sports bar and restau­rant O’Neals will keep ask­ing to see cus­tomers’ vac­ci­na­tion cards for now, said man­ag­ing part­ner Greg “Spoonie” Rand, even though the city is lift­ing its vac­cine man­date.

“Guests are more com­pli­ant and em­ploy­ees are more hap­py for us to con­tin­ue do­ing vac­cine cards in­side,” he said. He thinks vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple will be wary of com­ing in if the pub stops check­ing cards.

Walen­sky said the CDC wants to “give peo­ple a break from things like mask-wear­ing” when cir­cum­stances im­prove, though be able to mask up again if things wors­en. She al­so said there will be in­stances where peo­ple should con­tin­ue to wear masks even if pre­ven­tion mea­sures ease. Ex­am­ples in­clude when in­di­vid­u­als have symp­toms of COVID-19 or are with­in 10 days af­ter be­ing di­ag­nosed with it.

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As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­porters Mike Sto­bbe and Tali Ar­bel in New York, Clau­dia Lauer in Philadel­phia and Todd Rich­mond in Madi­son, Wis­con­sin, con­tributed.