Massachusetts will end its COVID-19 emergency status on May 11

The COVID-19 public health emergency in Massachusetts and the vaccine mandate for more than 40,000 state workers will both end on May 11, Gov. Maura Healey announced Wednesday.

The emergency status, which was declared on May 28, 2021, let the state's public health commissioner take actions to support COVID-19 testing and vaccination, protect higher-risk populations, continue surveillance of the virus and otherwise respond to outbreaks.

The May 11 date aligns with the expiration of the federal emergency declaration.

“Three years on from the start of the pandemic, we are now in a very different place,” state Health and Human Services Secretary Kate Walsh said in a statement. “While we will continue living with COVID-19, we can now incorporate the tools to manage this virus into our standing response to respiratory illness within our communities and healthcare system.”

Former Gov. Charlie Baker declared a state of emergency around COVID-19 in March 2020. As vaccines became available to broader swaths of the public in spring 2021, he lifted many restrictions, shifting the state to the more narrow public health emergency status it's been operating under since then.

In concert with the end of the state and federal emergencies, Healey plans to rescind an executive order, issued by Baker, that required tens of thousands of workers in the state’s executive branch agencies to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

That order, Healey's office said, helped boost the vaccination rate among those employees from around 76% to more than 99%. It also sparked a legal challenge from the union representing state troopers.

In a statement Wednesday, the State Police Association of Massachusetts thanked Healey for her plans to lift the mandate and said 20 of its members had been either fired or suspended without pay because of "sincerely held religious beliefs that stop them from receiving a COVID-19 vaccination."

Certain workers will still be subject to vaccine mandates under rules from the state Executive Office of Health and Human Services and the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Healey’s office said.

Healey also said she’ll file a bill that would let health care organizations keep some flexibilities allowed during the emergency, particularly around staffing.

Healey’s announcement comes three years to the day after Baker, as part of the state’s initial response to the unfolding pandemic, issued an unprecedented series of orders closing schools for three weeks, banning most gatherings of more than 25 people and prohibiting on-site dining at restaurants.