Nearly a week after the state ended its mask rule for businesses, and with still no clear metric released by state officials, Onondaga County Executive McMahon is now calling for a removal of New York's mask mandate for schools.

"With Cases and Hospitalizations drastically decreasing and no Metrics given for On ramps or Off ramps(for mandates) from NYS, NYS need to remove mandates. Let School Districts work with their communities on Masking," McMahon wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

The county executive has been very vocal over the last few weeks about wanting to see a clear plan from the state on what would determine phasing out the mask rule in public schools. Last week, he sent a letter to the state health commissioner, asking for that very plan.

"Our children deserve to know that their community leaders are working to restore a sense of normalcy and consistency at school," he wrote in that letter.

He has said before that individual school districts and counties can work on their own plan if the state deems a mask rule can be left up to local governments to decide.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who imposed the mask rule in schools on her first day in office back in August, said on Tuesday that there will not be a single, specific metric that will trigger a lifting on mask wearing in schools. She instead reiterated she will continue to monitor "a combination of factors" to determine when and how the mask mandate would end in school buildings, which include vaccination rates for children age 5 and older, as well as infection rates and hospitalizations. She also said she is watching for emerging COVID-19 variants on the order of omicron and delta that could drive cases up once again in the state. 

A decision from Hochul could come in early March.

Onondaga County reported 49 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, and has 187 active cases. There are 114 residents in the hospital and 16 residents in the ICU. There were no new hospital deaths but the state reported one new nursing home death.