While New York State officials have begun lifting certain coronavirus pandemic restrictions, not all residents are happy to see them go, according to a new poll released Tuesday by the Siena College Research Institute.
Forty-five percent of registered voters in the survey said the state should have kept in place its rule requiring masks or proof of full vaccination in indoor public places, which was recently rescinded. Some 31 percent said the mandate should have been ended earlier, and 20 percent said it ended at the right time, the poll found.
When it comes to masks in schools, 58 percent of respondents said they agreed with Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision to wait to review virus data for early March before deciding whether to extend the state mandate, while just 30 percent said they thought the school mask mandate should have ended already, and 10 percent said they wanted to see it end after this week’s midwinter break.
The poll was conducted from Feb. 14 to Feb. 17 and surveyed 803 registered voters in New York State, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points. Polls of registered voters offer a snapshot of political sentiment at a particular moment in time, but are less predictive of electoral outcomes.
Respondents without children at home were the group most likely to agree with Governor Hochul’s plan to review March data before acting on the school mask mandate, with 64 percent saying they supported waiting and seeing. Those with children at home were more evenly split, with 46 percent saying Ms. Hochul should review the March data before acting and 40 percent saying the mandate should have ended already.
Voters were essentially aligned across demographic groups, except for Republicans and conservatives, who said by wide margins that the mandate should already have ended.
“Waiting to see data from early March before deciding to lift the school mask mandate — as opposed to lifting that mandate as schools reconvene next week or wishing it had been lifted previously — is how the majority of New Yorkers would like to proceed,” Steven Greenberg, a Siena College pollster, wrote in a news release that accompanied the poll.
Ms. Hochul recently let the state’s indoor mask policy expire, allowing businesses to stop asking for proof of full vaccination or requiring masks indoors. She made that decision as the spread of the coronavirus slowed in the state. Average daily reports of new cases in New York have fallen by 57 percent over the past two weeks, according to federal data. Hospitalizations fell 47 percent over the same time period.
The metrics were similar in New York City, where cases fell by 55 percent and hospitalizations by 47 percent over the past two weeks.
Katie Glueck contributed reporting.
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