The decision will eliminate a rule that prompted legal and interpersonal clashes over mask wearing, especially in conservative parts of New York. It was set to expire on Thursday and would have required renewing.

Ms. Hochul is expected to let the mask mandate lapse just as a crushing winter surge in coronavirus cases is finally receding. But it was as yet unclear whether the governor would renew or drop a separate mask mandate in New York schools that expires in two weeks.

Still, the easing of New York’s pandemic restrictions on businesses comes as Democratic-led states from New Jersey to California have announced similar moves this week, in a loosely coordinated effort that is the result of months of public-health planning, back-channel discussions and political focus groups that began in the weeks after the November election.

The moves highlight how even local officials who installed sweeping safety measures early in the pandemic are now preparing to live permanently with the virus.

“This is not a declaration of victory as much as an acknowledgment that we can responsibly live with this thing,” Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey, a Democrat who imposed some of the nation’s toughest pandemic-related mandates, said on Monday. Under Mr. Murphy’s new policy, which will take effect the second week of March, students and school employees in the state will no longer be required to wear masks.

Shortly after the New Jersey announcement on Monday, the Democratic leaders in California, Connecticut, Delaware and Oregon separately said they would also end some mask mandates.

Connecticut will permit students and staff members to stop wearing masks in schools by no later than Feb. 28; Delaware will end mask mandates in schools by March 31. Oregon and California announced the end to mask mandates at indoor public spaces.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California wrote on Twitter on Monday that cases had dropped, hospitalizations had stabilized, and the state’s indoor mask mandate for vaccinated people would expire on Feb. 15.

Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon on Twitter said on Monday that the state would “lift mask requirements no later than March 31.”

The moves to eliminate mask mandates in these states come as the number of reported cases has dipped to its lowest level since the highly contagious Omicron variant touched off a wave of cases in December.

As of Tuesday, the daily average of new cases in the United States dropped to around 240,000, the lowest that figure has been since late December, according to a Times database.

Though the daily average of hospitalizations has steadily declined since its peak on Jan. 20, the daily average of deaths linked to the virus has hovered at nearly 2,600 since Jan. 27.

The rollbacks also highlight the patchwork nature of health protocols that have yet to be synchronized from county to county within many states, let alone between states, since the pandemic began in early 2020.

New Mexico and Illinois have statewide mask mandates for schools and many indoor settings, according to the Times’s mandate tracking site.

Idaho, Louisiana and Mississippi recommend indoor mask-wearing, and Republican-led states like Texas and Florida have banned mandates. Whether to mandate mask-wearing in schools is up to local officials in most states.

The mask rollbacks announced on Monday appear to undercut messaging coming from federal officials.

Asked on Monday about the lifting of mask mandates in New Jersey, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, pointed to federal guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that says masks can reduce transmission of coronavirus.

“Our responsibility as the federal government is to rely on the data and the science that is being analyzed by our public health experts,” Ms. Psaki said at a news conference.