BATON ROUGE - Hours after New Orleans announced it was reinstating its indoor mask requirement, East Baton Rouge officials say there's no plan to do the same here.

Mayor Sharon Weston Broome's office released a statement Tuesday in saying that the city-parish does not intend to bring back its parishwide mask mandate despite surging cases across Louisiana.  However, a city spokesperson clarified face coverings are still required inside city-parish buildings.

Read the full statement below.

"Mayor Broome has no plans at the present time to re-establish a mask mandate. However, it certainly remains an option as she is staying in close contact with local hospitals and healthcare providers about the best practices we should all take during this current surge. Masks are required inside all City-Parish facilities, which covers a number of frequently traveled buildings in our city, including the Raising Cane’s River Center. We will continue to consider additional mitigation steps for our community. In the meantime, we strongly encourage our citizens to listen to their doctors: wear a mask, get vaccinated and boosted, and stay home if you’re sick. The Omicron Variant is very contagious and is having real impacts on our local hospital capacity. The best way to protect our health and economy, and ensure that we can move forward with public events, is to heed the counsel of our physicians."