“We want to see the faces of our children, we want to see their smiles,” said Mayor Adams.  

As COVID cases have dropped in New York City after the sudden surge in cases from the Omicron-variant, health experts are concerned that Mayor Adams may be “moving too quickly” to drop COVID restrictions and mandates. The infection rate of COVID  remains high as the removal of mandates makes students and employees more vulnerable. 

According to the New York Times, The city's public advocate Jumaane Williams and state senator Liz Krueger have shown concern about the city’s mask mandate and vaccination policy. Although COVID cases and hospitalizations have decreased since January of 2022, with the mask mandate and vaccination policy, the fear of being vulnerable to infection is still at risk. To this concern, Mayor Adams has said that ''he would reinstate restrictions” if cases were to increase again. He had stated that he would restore the restrictions and change the policy as it was before and during the pandemic if cases and hospitalizations did increase. 

The new mask mandate and vaccination policy have caused controversies among New Yorkers, however, the people still have the choice of wearing their masks. The choice of removing the mask mandate in New York City was a response to the vocal anti-maskers. Other states’ removal of the mask mandate also encouraged Mayor Eric Adams to remove the mandate in New York City as well.  Mayor Adams had decided that the best compromise is to leave it up to personal choice from here on out.