Across the country, top Democratic officials are relaxing mask mandates
as Omicron recedes and concern rises about how masking is affecting
schoolchildren. Meanwhile, Republicans have seized on the issue to
attack Democrats as mask fundamentalists.

The shift among Democrats accelerated Monday, when a bipartisan group of
governors meeting with President Joe Biden in Washington told him they
wanted a “return to a greater state of normality” and to “move beyond
the pandemic.”

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