L.A. to restore indoor mask mandate

LOS ANGELES — A rapid and sustained increase in COVID-19 cases in the nation’s largest county requires restoring an indoor mask mandate even when people are vaccinated, Los Angeles County’s public health officer said Thursday.

Dr. Muntu Davis said at a virtual news conference that a public health order requiring masks indoors will go into effect Saturday.

“This is an all-hands-ondeck moment,” he said.

Dr. Davis didn’t fully detail what he said would be some exceptions but said for example, people could still go out to eat and take off their masks while eating and drinking.

The county has been recording more than 1,000 new cases each day for a week, and there is now “substantial community transmission,” Dr. Davis said.

Meanwhile, in Northern California, at least 59 residents at a homeless shelter have tested positive for the virus, half of whom were vaccinated, health officials said.

Of those infected at the shelter in Santa Rosa, 28 were fully vaccinated, Dr. Sundari Mase, Sonoma County’s health officer, said Wednesday. Officials were reviewing an additional 26 possible positive cases.

Of the 59 people with confirmed infections at Samuel L. Jones Hall, nine were hospitalized, including six who were fully vaccinated and had “multiple, significant” underlying health conditions, including diabetes and pulmonary disease, health officials said. Four have since been discharged, and five remain hospitalized.

Officials said that fewer than half of the 153 residents had received at least partial vaccination and they do not know whether the outbreak started with a vaccinated or unvaccinated resident.

“We know congregate settings are at much higher risk,” Dr. Mase said. “We also know there is a very high proportion of unvaccinated individuals that were in this setting.”

Most of the 69 vaccinated residents had received the single-shot Johnson & Johnson dose but Dr. Mase said it was hard to determine whether that was a factor in the outbreak.

Vaccines decrease the severity of the illness, reduce hospitalizations and decrease the risk of death. Clinical trials showed that a single dose of the J&J vaccine was 72% effective against moderate to severe COVID-19 in the United States, compared to 95% for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. A Food and Drug Administration analysis cautioned that it’s not clear how well the vaccines work against each variant.