County Mask Mandate To Expire April 9

In a major development, the Madison County mask mandate has been announced to have the same expiration date as that of the state-wide mask mandate.

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You're taking a live look above madison county from our waay 31 air care systems sky camera network.

In a matter of weeks -- the state-wide mask mandate is set to expire.

Tonight -- we learned the madison county mask mandate has the same expiration date.

April ninth -- it'll be up to businesses and individuals if they want to mask up or not.

Waay31's megan reyna is live in downtown huntsville after learning about the decision to lift the county's mandate, and how people are reacting.

Megan.... the topic of masks has always been a divided one.

And that's still the case.

I spoke with several people here at big spring park this afternoon and some were excited to hear about the mandate expiring -- other's not so much.

At thursday's city council meeting -- several citizens chose to speak out against the mandate.

That's when mayor tommy battle announced -- the huntsville-area covid-19 leadership team has made the decision to let the county-wide mask mandate expire when the state's does.

That's april ninth.

That decision was based off the current covid-infection rate and the number of hospitalizations.

I reached out to the mayor today and learned city hall and municipal offices will still require masking.

But now it's up to business owners if they will do the same -- or let their customers choose.

It's just an act of respect, as well as an act of being concerned about your health."

"it's close to very good timing, another week or two would be better but at the end of the day i think it should be up to businesses to really enforce it themselves."

Battle added if covid cases begin to rise again -- they can re-instate the mask order.

The biggest concerns among doctors i've spoken to in the past is that this could cause a spike in cases -- since we haven't vaccinated enough people.

Only 24 percent of madison county's population have received the first dose of the covid vaccine.

To reach herd immunity -- doctors say it needs to be around 60 to 70 percent.

Reporting live in hsv mr waay 31 news