Effective Wednesday, folks with a court date in Hamilton County will need to mask up before stepping into the Hamilton County Courthouse, regardless of vaccination status.

Mandatory masking will apply to anyone, including employees, entering the courthouse, according to a release from court administrator and chief probation officer Patrick Dressing.

Wearing a mask inside a courtroom may be required by the judge.

The rule will remain in effect until the county is no longer considered to be in a state of "high community transmission" by the Centers for Disease Control's COVID-19 data tracker.

Currently, all counties in the Greater Cincinnati region, including in Indiana and Kentucky, are considered to have high community transmission of the disease.

The data tracker shows that, in Hamilton County, roughly 52.8% of the population has received one vaccine shot; around 50.1% of the population is fully vaccinated.