Looks like President Joe Biden and the rest of the mask mandate lobby will have yet another reason to be disappointed soon. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, announced on Wednesday that he will rescind the state’s indoor mask mandate by Feb. 28. He indicated that masks would still be mandated in K-12 schools for the time being.

The Washington Examiner reported:

Pritzker is the eighth blue-state governor to announce an end to masking indoors in some capacity this week. The governors are aware that the public is eager to ditch masks and return to a sense of normalcy now that the pandemic has shown signs of calming. They are moving toward the policies of red states that have avoided mandates and restrictions for months, even before the omicron wave hit and then subsided.

“We’re better than all of the states around us at keeping people healthy and safe and certainly out of the hospital during this last Omicron wave, in part because people wear their masks,” Pritzker explained. “The intention is to lift the mask mandate in the indoor locations by February 28.”

Pritzker continued:

“And that… of course, we still have the sensitive locations of K-12 schools, where we have lots of people who are, you know, joined together in smaller spaces, thousands of people interacting in one location at a time. And so that’s something that will come weeks hence. But very importantly, things are getting better across the state of Illinois.”

The state’s COVID-19 outlook is much better than it was previously. From the Examiner:

Illinois’s COVID-19 prognosis is looking significantly brighter than it did about a month ago, when more than 32,000 new cases on average were reported over seven days. The average has plummeted to roughly 6,800 daily new cases on average during the week ending Feb. 8. Hospitalizations in Illinois are also down 47% from two weeks ago, according to New York Times tracking.

While the governor has not indicated when mask mandates in schools would be lifted, he did indicate he would be announcing a decision in the near future.

Pritzker’s announcement comes after New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Delaware Gov. John Carney, both Democrats, declared they would be lifting mask mandates in their states. It seems that anti-mandate sentiment is gaining momentum.

Even though Pritzker did not lay out his plans for lifting mask mandates in schools, it is not difficult to imagine that it will not be too long before he removes those as well. America is heading towards a post-COVID era and even Democrats are recognizing they can’t push coronavirus restrictions forever. Indeed, many see that time is up. Americans are itching to get back to normal. It has become clear that the Democrats will have to bend to the will of the people on this one. But I’m sure that for them, it was nice while it lasted.