Utah legislature ends mask mandates, moves toward halting COVID-19 testing in schools

Utah's state legislature on Friday ended mask mandates for Salt Lake and Summit Counties by a 45-29 vote. All 45 votes in support of the repeal were provided by Republicans, and the 17 Democrats who opposed were joined by 12 Republicans who voted to keep the mandates in place.

"I understand many people are looking for ways to combat this omicron surge. I understand many people want to bring about an end to this pandemic. Doing something for the sake of doing something is not a good enough justification," said GOP state Rep. Candace Pierucci.

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Masks are no longer required by law, but businesses are free to require customers to wear masks at their own discretion. 

The sudden overhaul of county regulations on COVID-19 precautions angered some politicians who urged Utah citizens to continue masking, regardless of mandates.

"In spite of the misguided actions of the legislature today, please continue to wear good quality masks while in public," Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson said in a statement. "We are at very high rates of COVID spread, and we are hopeful to have the omicron variant of the virus behind us soon. Health experts agree masks worn properly help contain the spread of COVID. Let’s all help keep our teachers teaching, our students learning, our hospitals operating and our residents healthy."

Utah's legislature is also positioned to end the mandatory Test to Stay Program outlined in Utah Senate Bill 107, a policy that requires students to regularly produce negative COVID-19 tests and schools to close down after a low threshold of cases is reached. 

The legislature has wrestled with the program for weeks. Utah's lawmakers previously banned remote learning for more than a day per school week, but walked the restrictions back after the emergence of the omicron variant.

The state House passed a bill on Jan. 20, once again pausing Test to Stay precautions, while equivalent legislation has bounced around the state senate without approval.

Utah Senate Bill 107 requires test-to-stay procedures when "schools with 1,500 or more students have 2% of their students test positive for COVID-19 within the previous 14 days" or when "schools with fewer than 1,500 students have 30 students test positive for COVID-19 within the previous 14 days."

"There is a real urgency to let our districts and schools know what the approach that we're going to have for Test to Stay is," said Republican state Rep. Jordan Teuscher.

The health departments in Utah and Minnesota are facing potential lawsuits after they issued guidance using race and ethnicity as factors in prioritizing distribution of coronavirus treatments.

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Letters sent Wednesday by America First Legal (AFL) allege that both states violated federal law through "blatant discrimination."

Utah has published a scoring system by which it determines patients' "risk" and eligibility for treatments. At the top of the list are "male," "age" and "Non-White race or Hispanic/Latinx ethnicity." Most of the various risk factors – including "other high-risk comorbidities" – receive one point while the racial/ethnic category receives two, the same amount designated for "highest-risk comorbidities" like diabetes, obesity and being severely immunocompromised. 

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A document dated Jan. 12 shows Minnesota citing federal guidance from the Food and Drug Administration stating that race and ethnicity are relevant factors.

Fox News' Sam Dorman contributed to this report.