A northeast Kansas city and its home county will require employees and visitors to wear masks inside their buildings, adding to the local mandates aimed at controlling the more contagious COVID-19 delta variant.
The city of Lawrence and Douglas County announced the mask requirements apply whether someone has been vaccinated against COVID-19 or not.
Their announcements echo one made by the University of Kansas, which imposed an indoor mask mandate for students, staff, and visitors at its main campus in Lawrence and a satellite campus in Johnson County.
Manhattan also is requiring masks inside its buildings, as is Kansas State University.
New COVID-19 cases have risen steadily in Kansas over the past six weeks because of the delta variant.
Kansas averaged 942 new COVID-19 cases per day for the seven days that ended last Friday.