State officials said at a news conference Friday that now is not the time to remove Oregon’s masking mandate given the current levels of coronavirus transmission, test positivity rates and hospitalizations.

But they said they are comfortable with their previously announced plan to lift the indoor masking mandate by the end of March because of current disease trends and modeling that predicts lifting the mandate at that time will not lead to significant outbreaks.

Dr. Dean Sidelinger, state epidemiologist, said Friday that “the worst of the omicron surge is behind us,” though he added that unvaccinated, immune-compromised individuals and people with chronic health conditions are still at risk.

Sidelinger said newly diagnosed cases were down 71% from three weeks ago, and that hospitalizations had crested Jan. 27 at 1,130, just below this summer’s delta surge. On Friday, there were 947 Oregonians hospitalized with COVID-19, down 125 from the start of the week.

There are still 1,300 National Guard and 1,200 out-of-state contract medical personnel deployed to help local health systems cope with the surge, Sidelinger said, and hospitals are still operating at or near capacity and delaying elective surgeries because of omicron’s impact.

Peter Graven, lead data scientist at Oregon Health and Science University, released his weekly COVID modeling update Thursday. It forecasts coronavirus hospitalizations declining to about 400 in seven weeks. His early projections of omicron’s peak hospitalization proved wildly inaccurate – nearly three times the actual peak – though he subsequently revised them sharply downward and said Oregonians’ behavior and compliance with COVID protocols had significantly reduced the surge.

The projections released Thursday showed that if Oregon were to lift the mask mandate, hospitalization numbers would go back up to 1,127. But that forecast appeared to be out of date already, as actual hospitalizations have already fallen well below the starting point of that projection.

Graven said Friday that he had greater confidence in his projections of omicron’s decline based on what has already taken place in Oregon, and how the surge has played out in other countries and states. He said the high number of Oregonians who have already been infected with the variant, coupled with the level of community transmission projected at the end of March, provided reassurance that that lifting the mandate seven weeks from now will not result in significant outbreaks.

Much of the discussion at Friday’s news conference centered on what the state’s new masking guidance would mean for schools, and whether the Oregon Health Authority and the Department of Education are sending mixed messages.

Earlier this week, the Oregon Department of Education sent guidance to schools strongly advising the use of face coverings in schools to reduce spread and minimize the impact of quarantine through the school year, even though the state is lifting masking requirements March 31.

Colt Gill, the agency’s director, said that didn’t conflict with the state’s new guidance, but gave school leaders the discretion to make independent decisions based on the experience in their communities, vaccination rates, the availability of air filtration and space to keep kids spread out.

“A layered mitigation approach needs to be in place for schools to be successful,” he said. Schools have seven weeks to plan that approach, he added, and those that choose to fall out of compliance with state and federal rules by dropping masks sooner will lose access to supplemental federal funding they have been receiving.

To see more data and trends, visit https://projects.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/

— Ted Sickinger; tsickinger@oregonian.com; 503-221-8505; @tedsickinger