Commercial Fixed Wing
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 1
Communication Breakdown; Situational Awareness; Training / Qualification
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance
Human Factors; Environment - Non Weather Related; Procedure
Aircraft X checked in for Runway XXC was told descend and maintain 040 and good rate down; leveled off at 050 while being vectored to final and told to parallel final on heading 350 and expedite down to 30; shortly after looking 1;000 feet at 2.7 miles he saw the field and was cleared.There was approximately 10 read back errors during this push due to the new mask mandate; control instructions had to be repeated to this pilot 2 times.  With the new mandate and tower restrictions forces us to land Runway XXC and XXR in IFR weather this operation is unsafe with the new altitude restrictions implemented by our supervisors.For the past 2 weeks management has told the arrival wall to not go below 4;000 feet until north of ZZZZZ (the dual fix) regardless of where the aircraft's flight path will be; this makes IFR operations very difficult to accomplish at ZZZ and is a very poor knee jerk reaction to a Controller making a simple mistake.  These type of rule changes mean that every single transmission on that wall need to be 100% clear and any read back error will cause an aircraft incident;  we cannot continue with frivolous rule changes and a mask mandate unless we would like a major incident or accident at ZZZ.Allow us to use judgment and common sense on where to turn our own airplane.  These unnecessary rule changes will cause more incidents than they will prevent.
TRACON Controller reported communication issues with pilots due to having to wear a mask which is exacerbated when new procedural changes are introduced.