LA County to lift certain mask requirements on Wednesday, Feb. 16
Starting at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 16, mask mandates in certain public settings for vaccinated individuals will lift across California, but according to state officials, masking requirements schools will remain in tact.
Masks will still be required for everyone regardless of vaccination status in public transit, health care facilities, and airports. Anybody age 2 or above who aren’t vaccinated will still need to wear masks in all public spaces.
However, businesses and venue owners may make their own decisions regarding masks in order to protect staff and patrons.
The indoor mask requirements in schools will apply until at least the end of February, which is when the state will review guidelines.
“We will, today, not make a change,” Dr. Mark Ghaly, state secretary of health and human services, said of the possibility to lift masking requirements in schools. “Two weeks from now we will reassess the data and we will look at the information on case rates, confirm case numbers will continue to come down.”
Despite the state’s announcement, individual counties still have control over mandates within their jurisdictions, allowing them to uphold masking mandates or follow the state’s recommendation.
However, public health officials, continue to encourage indoor masking to mitigate the spread.
Ghaly said, “As we move from a requirement to a strong recommendation, I keep saying it that way because it’s important to understand that we’re not lifting a masking concept in California. We aren’t going from masks one day [to] don’t mask the next.”
Counties confirmed to follow the state’s lead and lift indoor mask mandates include Ventura, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties.
On Tuesday, Feb. 15, Los Angeles County — which has been one of the many counties most severely hit with coronavirus surges since the beginning of the pandemic — announced that it will lift its outdoor mask mandate at midnight for mega-events and outdoors at K-12 schools and child care institutions.
However, indoor masks in other public spaces in LA County will remain in place until the virus-transmission rate decreases to and maintains at the “moderate” level for two weeks, according to federal recommendations, or until Covid-19 vaccines have been available to children under 5 years old for eight weeks.
Earlier this month, LA County Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said that the county will be considered out of the current Covid-19 surge when hospitalizations due to Covid will drop below 2,500 for seven days in a row, which the county achieved on Wednesday, Feb. 9.
As of Tuesday, 1,995 people were hospitalized across the county due to Covid-19, and according to trends over the last week, Ferrer said that the county could reach “moderate” level within the next month.
In the Bay Area, most counties will follow the state’s mask mandate, except Santa Clara County which will not relax its indoor mask mandate.
“Masks are very important additional layer and have been throughout the pandemic,” Santa Clara County Health Director Sara Cody said in a statement. “We need to layer up, need many layers in place when there’s a lot of COVID circulating right now. We are still at the high levels of community transmission, we are in the CDC red, and that’s why we are still requiring masks indoors.”
In San Francisco, masks will still be required in city facilities, like San Francisco City Hall as well as “libraries, recreation centers, offices, and other service sites operated by the City,” according to a statement. n
