Officials in Los Angeles County have finally decided to loosen its masking mandates, if only for outdoor settings.
The county lifted the mask mandate for outdoor spaces this past Wednesday for K-12 schools, child-care, youth sports, and mega-events, but all people are still forced to wear masks in any indoor public area across the county. This choice of plan seems to come as the state begins to change its mask mandates to only affect people who still hold an unvaccinated status.
“With significant improvement in community transmission rates, we’re looking forward to realigning our safety measures while continuing as always to ensure protections for our workers and our most vulnerable residents,” stated Barbara Ferrer, the L.A. County Public Health Director, to the county Board of Supervisors this past Tuesday, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
“County health officials had said they would drop outdoor masking requirements once coronavirus-positive hospitalizations dropped below 2,500 for seven consecutive days,” stated the Times. As of this past Wednesday, the county officially dropped under that threshold.
As made official on Tuesday, the most recent data sets from hospitals across the state seem to show that there were just 1,835 ICU coronavirus-positive patients being treated in L.A. County. “That figure has fallen 29% in the last week,” continued the Times.
When speaking on mask-wearing while indoors in L.A. County, the plan seems to have started to move. “County health officials said they will keep the indoor mask mandate in place until the region records seven consecutive days at a ‘moderate’ level of coronavirus transmission, as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Originally, health officials said ‘moderate’ transmission would be required for at least two weeks,” stated the Times.
In order to get to that point, the daily number of new cases in the county would have to drop to roughly 730. Ferrer issued an estimation that the county could get to that number by as soon as mid-March in virus transmissions continued to drop.
The chance for younger children, normally under the age of 5, to get vaccinated against the virus is also supposedly not going to be a factor in the measurements for changing the requirements.
“We’re no longer using the availability of the vaccine as a metric to consider lifting indoor masking, because it’s just too far out,” claimed Ferrer. “We think that there are sensible metrics that we take into account, and that our improving case numbers really help us make sure that we are able to continue protections for workers in places where masking will be required.”
The state of California as a whole has recently lifted its indoor mask mandates for all vaccinated people.
As stated on the state’s website:
Everyone is required to wear masks in:
- Public transit and in stations, terminals, and airports
- Indoors in K-12 schools and childcare
- Healthcare settings
- State and local correctional facilities and detention centers
- Homeless shelters
- Long-term care settings and adult and senior care facilities
It also went on to add:
Masks are required for unvaccinated people and recommended for everyone in:
- Indoor public settings
- Retail
- Restaurants
- Theaters
- Family entertainment centers
- Meetings
- State and local government offices that serve the public