Baltimore Ushers in Indoor Mask Mandate: People Will “Continue to Die’ Unless Vaccinations Rise

Baltimore, Maryland, is ushering in an indoor mask mandate months after Gov. Larry Hogan (R) lifted the statewide requirement.

The order goes into effect Monday and applies to both the vaccinated and unvaccinated.

“This pandemic is not over and we must all do our due diligence to protect ourselves and our neighbors,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) said this week.

“While we know that masking is a sure way to slow the spread of COVID-19, we cannot stress enough the importance and urgency of getting vaccinated so that we can beat COVID-19 for good,” he added, explaining that the number of cases has jumped 374 percent in the last month.

Scott, in pushing for vaccinations, claimed that people will “continue to die” if more people do not get the jab.

“More people will die. This is not fear-mongering. This is reality,” he asserted. “We’ve lost so many more, and we will continue to lose people if people don’t get vaccinated.”

“If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for those around you, those children who are still too young to receive a vaccine who are just as much at risk. I want to be clear, the pandemic is not over,” he added.

Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Letitia Dzirasa appeared to agree.

“The delta variant is here, and it poses a serious threat to our unvaccinated residents,” she said. “I’m speaking to you not just as the health commissioner, but as a mother of a child that is too young to be vaccinated.”

“We have the ability to slow the spread [of] COVID-19 and the actions we all take collectively will protect the most vulnerable among us,” she added.

Thousands of breakthrough cases of the virus have been reported throughout the country. According to a July 29 NBC Chicago report, nearly 650 fully vaccinated people have been hospitalized, and over 160 fully vaccinated people have died of the virus in Illinois alone:

As Breitbart News reported, the state is not publicizing the number of fully vaccinated individuals who are testing positive for the virus, only reporting cases that require hospitalization or result in death, so the true number of breakthrough cases is likely significantly higher.

The Baltimore mayor’s announcement comes on the heels of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recent guidance urging vaccinated people to wear a mask in areas of “substantial or high transmission.”