The United States reported more than 2,100 COVID-19 deaths on Monday, even as daily cases and hospitalizations continued to decline from record highs set earlier this month. Here in New York, a judge ruled Monday that Governor Kathy Hochul’s statewide mask mandate for all indoor public places was enacted unlawfully and is now void. Supreme Court Justice Thomas Rademacher ruled that only lawmakers — rather than the governor or health officials — had the authority to enact the mask mandate. New York’s Department of Health is planning an appeal. 

In Virginia, seven school districts have filed suit to block Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin’s executive order making masks optional in schools. 

On Monday, the first of 400 million free N95 masks for the public began arriving at U.S. pharmacies, after the Biden administration ordered them delivered from the Strategic National Stockpile.