YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - Pennsylvania will lift all health orders except for its mask mandate on Memorial Day.

That order would be lifted once it has 70 percent of the population vaccinated.

This comes as Governor Mike DeWine still upholds the 50 cases per 100 thousand people benchmark he wants to reach before lifting all health orders.

Now that one half of adults have been vaccinated in Pennsylvania gatherings like Water Fire can take place.

The event that typically attracts 10,000 to 15,000 people to downtown Sharon is set for September 18th.

Masks are mandatory. The state saying it won't lift that mandate until 70% percent of people in the Commonwealth have their COVID 19 vaccine.

Texas A&M University Virologist Dr. Ben Neuman said, "I like when public officials come up with a way to incentivize taking vaccines, because vaccines are the only way we really get out of this.I am actually in favor of this. I think that's a good way to go about it." I don't know if 70 percent of adults is quite enough, you would need a substantial proportion of children as well on top of that to get to the herd immunity threshold."

"If you look on the CDC website all but four counties in western PA are listed in the highest category for risk of transmission of the virus. ... I would want to know the numbers are coming down across the state and for comparison only 20 of the counties of the 88 in Ohio are in the highest risk category," said Dr. Neuman.

Mercer is bad right now. Dr. Neuman revealed that there are still around 3,000 infections a day and that he would like to see the numbers go down more before Pennsylvania starts lifting restrictions.

Other doctors agree they don't believe 70% is herd immunity, and wonder if ending a mask mandate will motivate people.

Dr. Virginia Banks said, "The numbers I'm hearing are staggering, who are saying they are not going to get their second vaccine, and they're just not going to get vaccinated."

In Ohio the governor and state health department have said they will lift gathering restrictions and mask mandates based on science when spread of the virus drops to 50 cases per 100,000 people.

We asked an Infectious Disease Specialist which approach between the two states is best.

"I always worry when we start giving incentives that are not based on science, because sure everybody's tired and we're all tired of being quarantined but when we start letting our guards down we see what happened in other states, and other parts of the world," added Dr. Banks.

Dr. Banks has concerns about variants, so she is glad the Pennsylvania mask mandate is still in place.

telling us India and many other countries have regretted loosening restrictions prematurely.

She also tells WFMJ news that numbers are slightly ticking up again in the Mahoning valley.