With its new mask mandate, L.A. County again at forefront
LOS ANGELES — By imposing a sweeping indoor mask mandate, Los Angeles County has again pushed itself onto the front lines of the national battle to contain the hyper-contagious delta variant of the coronavirus.
The easily spread strain has been blamed for increases in infections across the country, and it created a new tightrope for public health officials to walk as they seek to balance the need to protect the unvaccinated while acknowledging that those who are can largely resume prepandemic life.
While federal and state authorities continue to urge the unvaccinated to take safety precautions and get their shots, Los Angeles County has gone a step further: turning to mandatory masking in indoor public settings, even for those who are vaccinated, in hopes of turning the tide.
The effect of the new health order, which was set to begin Saturday night, won’t become clear for a few weeks. Should the strategy prove successful, the county could provide a blueprint for blunting transmission without resorting to the business closures and lockdowns that sparked so much frustration and fear over the last 16 months.
But if it fails — either on account of public apathy or because it wasn’t aggressive enough — officials acknowledge they may have to take additional action.
“Anything is on the table if things continue to get worse, which is why we want to take action now,” said Dr. Muntu Davis, the county’s health officer.
Under the county’s order masks will be required in all indoor public settings, such as theaters, stores, gyms, offices and workplaces, and in restaurants when not eating and drinking. Those exempted include children younger than 2.
There is much debate about whether the county’s new measures are needed. Though cases and hospitalizations are on the rise nationwide, officials say new infections and hospital admissions overwhelmingly involve unvaccinated people. More than 97 percent of patients entering hospitals nationwide with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Walensky said local policymakers might consider additional masking measures “if you have areas of low vaccination and high case rates,” at least until a community’s vaccination rates improve.
About 52 percent of Los Angeles County residents are fully vaccinated, and roughly 60 percent have gotten at least one shot. But given the region’s enormous population, that still leaves millions vulnerable.
Dr. Robert Kim-Farley, medical epidemiologist and infectious diseases expert at the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, said he’s not worried about the pandemic approaching the same level of devastation seen half a year ago. But he is “concerned about the trajectory and the speed of the doubling of new cases.”
He said that “hopefully, this will be the wake-up call for those who are still vaccine hesitant to roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated.”
Kim-Farley said he did not expect officials to restrict business capacity or reimpose physical distancing measures except as a strategy of last resort.
It’s also unlikely that hospital systems would ever become as strained as they were earlier in the pandemic, he said, “because of the fact that the vast majority of those who are elderly — and at greatest risk of severe disease and death — have been vaccinated. Younger people that are coming down with disease will not have the same high rates of severe illness and death.”