EDITORIAL: More governors dump mask edicts; where’s Sisolak?

And then there were six.

With coronavirus cases falling rapidly in virtually every state, the mandatory mask brigade is fast thinning. On Monday, the Democratic governors of Oregon and Delaware announced they’ll relax face-covering requirements in the coming weeks. California will do the same on Tuesday.

That leaves just six states — all led by Democrats — still forcing residents to mask up at public indoor settings. Nevada is among the holdouts. It appears Nevadans may have to pry this pandemic from Gov. Steve Sisolak’s cold fingers.

Is the governor prepared for Nevada to be the last state in the country that enforces a mask requirement? His office didn’t respond to a request for comment. As of Wednesday, we’re on mandate Day 164 and counting.

In issuing his order in July, Gov. Sisolak tied the edict to recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on community spread at a time when the delta variant was gaining a foothold. He stated the mandate would remain in place until the two-week average of new cases in a given county dropped below 50 per 100,000 residents and the test positivity rate dipped under 8 percent.

Clark County remains above those thresholds — and may stay that way for months even though delta has been replaced by the milder omicron, now in retreat.

But the CDC, which has issued so much confusing advice over the past two years that its officials may soon be banned from Spotify, cautions that its recommendations are not etched in granite. “CDC guidance is meant to supplement — not replace — any federal, state, tribal, local or territorial health and safety laws, rules and regulations,” an agency representative wrote in an email to the Review-Journal.

In other words, Gov. Sisolak has conveniently passed the buck to federal health officials when virtually every other governor in the union — Democrat and Republican — is coming to the conclusion that it’s time to move toward normalcy.

“We can responsibly take this step,” New Jersey’s Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy said this week in announcing that schoolchildren will no longer have to wear masks on campus, “given the continuing drop in new cases and hospitalizations from omicron and with all the evidence projecting a continued decline over the coming weeks.”

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, also a Democrat, offered similar sentiments on Monday. “I think today with boosters, given vaccines, given the N95 masks, you are in a better position to keep yourself safe,” he said. “Your child is in a better place to keep themselves safe.”

Gov. Sisolak, by contrasy, prefers to stay mum. He should lift the mask requirement. But if he insists on being an outlier, he owes Nevadans an explanation for why they may be the last U.S. residents under a statewide mask order.