COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Governors took sweeping actions during earlier surges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many closed schools and ordered businesses shut down. They issued mask mandates, vaccine requirements and even quarantines in some places for people who had traveled to out-of-state hot spots.

Not this time, even as the exponential spread of the super-contagious omicron variant shatters COVID-19 infection records. While governors are sending help to hospitals, they are displaying little appetite for widespread public orders or shutdowns.

Even Democratic governors who passed strict mandates early on are now relying more on persuasion than dictates. They largely are leaving it up to local officials to make the tough calls on decisions such as whether to limit capacity in restaurants and theaters or keep schools open.

South Carolina set a record for positive tests over the New Year’s weekend and COVID-19 hospitalizations are up 67% from the week before. But Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, urged everyone to carry on as if everything’s fine. “If you get real sick, there will be room in the hospitals,” he promised this week.

“There’s no need to panic. Be calm. Be happy,” McMaster said. “We just had a great Christmas season. Business is booming.”

McMaster has consistently urged people to get vaccinated and in the earliest days of the pandemic, he directed K-12 schools and colleges to move to distance learning. But students are back in classrooms across the state, and he continues to resist imposing any statewide business shutdowns.

California is grappling with an astonishing spike in infections, and the state health department extended an indoor mask mandate to Feb. 15, but the state’s Democratic leaders included no mechanism to enforce it. “I think a lot of people will self-enforce and do the right thing,” Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters last month.

The sentiment seems familiar to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan. The Republican announced a 30-day state of emergency to fight the omicron variant surge, but it doesn’t include the same statewide mask mandate ordered earlier in the pandemic.

“I’m not sure the people that are refusing to wear a mask are going to wear one anyway, and we don’t have the ability to enforce it,” Hogan said. “So we’re just strongly encouraging people to wear the damn mask.”

New Jersey has had the second-largest U.S. caseload during this surge, after New York, and Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy asked the legislature to renew his emergency powers so he can continue a mask mandate in schools. But renewed business shutdowns and near universal mask mandates appear to be off the table, and instead of issuing new executive orders, he’s urging people to follow public health recommendations.