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New York City’s mayor will announce Thursday that he’s exempting athletes and performers from the city’s vaccine mandate for private workers, a move that will allow Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving to play home games and unvaccinated baseball players to take the field when their season begins. Mayor Eric Adams will make the announcement Thursday morning and it will be effective immediately, according to a person familiar with the upcoming announcement who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. The city’s sweeping vaccine mandate for workers will still apply to people with other types of jobs, including government employees. (Price, 3/24)

Los Angeles on Wednesday took another step toward rolling back its COVID-19 vaccine verification requirements for indoor restaurants, gyms, movie theaters and other businesses even amid concerns that circulation of the “stealth” Omicron subvariant, BA.2, might fuel an increase in cases this spring. The City Council voted 13 to 1 to make it voluntary for such businesses to verify that people patronizing their indoor areas are vaccinated. The changes would also remove such requirements for big outdoor events. (Alpert Reyes, Money and Lin II, 3/23)

Months after Los Angeles rolled out requirements for city workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the city said that as of last week, it had terminated 24 employees for violating those rules. The terminated employees include a dozen workers at the Los Angeles Fire Department, as well as smaller numbers of employees in the city attorney’s office, the Los Angeles Police Department, the parks department and Los Angeles World Airports, according to the city personnel department. (Alpert Reyes, 3/23)

The CEOs of 10 airlines and cargo carriers have signed a letter to President Joe Biden saying he should end the transportation mask mandate and testing requirements for international travelers. In a new letter, industry group Airlines for America wrote, "now is the time for the Administration to sunset federal transportation travel restrictions -- including the international predeparture testing requirement and the federal mask mandate -- that are no longer aligned with the realities of the current epidemiological environment." The CEOs of Alaska Airlines, American Airlines (AAL), Atlas Air Worldwide, Delta Air Lines (DAL), FedEx Express, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue Airways (JBLU), Southwest Airlines (LUV), United Airlines (UAL), and UPS Airlines signed the letter. (Muntean, 3/23)

A federal judge in Charlottesville ruled Wednesday that a handful of schools in Virginia could require face masks if necessary to protect a dozen immunocompromised children whose families sued over mask-optional policies. The ruling includes schools in the state’s largest districts, Loudoun and Fairfax. Judge Norman K. Moon emphasized repeatedly, though, that he is not undoing state law and an executive order that makes masks optional. His order is limited to the 12 families who sued in Charlottesville federal court, whose children attend 10 different school districts in Virginia and range in age from preschool to 11th grade. Those children, he ruled, can ask their schools to require masks as an accommodation for their disabilities. (Natanson and Weiner, 3/24)

Longtime radio personality Howard Stern didn't hide his disappointment Wednesday that mask mandates were being lifted across the country, despite a drastic reduction in new coronavirus cases over the past few months. During Wednesday's broadcast of "The Howard Stern Show," Stern blamed Republicans for the lifting of the mandates, referred to them as "wackos" who were anti-mask and anti-vaccine, and declared that he missed the "old Republican Party." (Gillespie, 3/23)

The U.S. Capitol will reopen to the public on Monday for guided tours for limited groups of people who have registered in advance, congressional officials said, two years after the coronavirus pandemic prompted the cessation of such visits. Officials said that the resumption would occur in phases, beginning on Monday for school groups and other groups of up to 15 people who would be led by lawmakers or their aides. Congressional offices would each be limited to leading one tour weekly. (Fram, 3/23)

More than two years into the country’s declared public health emergency, the Biden administration faces a dilemma about whether and when to end it. The administration is under pressure from the public and Republican lawmakers to lift the emergency this year as COVID-19 case counts come down and the virus becomes increasingly endemic. But the return to pre-pandemic normal could have downsides: Millions of Americans risk losing their health coverage and could find it harder to access care. (Cohen, 3/23)

Recent opinion surveys give mixed messages about how Americans perceive the current state of the pandemic, and what they think we should do about it. In a February Washington Post/ABC News poll, for example, 58 percent of Americans said that controlling the spread of the coronavirus is more important than loosening restrictions on normal activities. In a Yahoo News/YouGov poll conducted the same week, 51 percent said we need to learn to live with COVID-19 and get back to normal. These are two of several examples that show Americans have seemingly conflicting views about the pandemic. A natural question to ask is why—is it the polls or the American people who are confused? And what do Americans really think? (Jackson, 3/23)