Alabama’s Gov. Kay Ivey will move ahead with her plan to end the state’s mask mandate next week despite President Biden’s plea Monday for the nation’s governors to keep the mandates in place or to reinstitute them.
“As Governor Ivey has previously stated, Alabama’s mask mandate ends April 9. We have made progress, and we are moving towards personal responsibility and common sense, not endless government mandates," Ivey’s spokesperson Gina Maiola told CNN.
During a news conference earlier this month, Ivey said masks have been the greatest tool in combating the virus. However, she said it was time to make this a personal responsibility rather than a government mandate.
Since the start of the pandemic, Alabama has reported at least 514,619 cases and at least 10,526 deaths, according to the state website. More than 1.6 million Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered in the state, the dashboard shows.
Note: These numbers were released by the state's public health agency and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services.