Twenty-five months after schools and businesses closed, people isolated at home for weeks, and Americans hoarded mountains of toilet paper, Jefferson County, like most of the U.S., has settled into a sort of new normal, shedding many changes brought on by the pandemic and living—however grudgingly—with others that remain.
Mask mandates are mostly gone, except for some places under federal jurisdiction, like airports and commercial flights, and many vaccine mandates are tied up in litigation, although one mandate for federal employees was recently allowed on appeal. There are no mask or vaccine mandates imposed by Jefferson County or the state of Montana, nor any restrictions on business operations.
Things were much different little more than a year ago. The county imposed a mask mandate on Feb. 19, 2021, effectively extending within the county a statewide mask mandate previously imposed by then Gov. Steve Bullock in July 2020 and repealed by Gov. Greg Gianforte on Feb. 12, 2021. The Whitehall School District threatened to sue the Jefferson County Health Board over the mandate, and the board eventually repealed the mandate April 2, 2021, in response to a drop in cases last spring that continued into early summer.
