On Monday, Philadelphia announced that it would be the first major U.S. city to reinstate its indoor mask mandate. Public health officials say they're concerned by a sharp increase in COVDI-19 cases in the city — over the last 10 days, cases have spiked by 50 percent.
"If we fail to act now, knowing that every previous wave of infections has been followed by a wave of hospitalizations, and then a wave of deaths, it will be too late for many of our residents," said Dr. Cheryl Bettigole, the city's health commissioner. "This is our chance to get ahead of the pandemic, to put our masks on until we have more information about the severity of this new variant."
