Governor softens vow to lift state mask order
One day after saying California was likely to lift its mask mandate for “businesses large and small” when the state reopens June 15, Gov. Gavin Newsom suggested Wednesday that pandemicrelated requirements for face coverings will probably remain for “indoor activities.”
The governor’s remarks left open the issue of which indoor settings might still have mask mandates in a little over a month.
On Tuesday, Newsom told a Los Angeles reporter that masks will be required “only in those settings that are indoor, only in those massively large settings where people from around the world, not just around the country, are convening and where people are mixing in real dense spaces.”
Otherwise, Newsom told KTTVTV, “we’ll make guidance recommendations, but ... no mandates and no restrictions on businesses large and small.”
However, Newsom was not nearly so definitive when asked about masks Wednesday at an event in Monterey County.
“We will be updating our mask guidelines — outdoor masking — if we reach that threshold where we hope to be” by June 15, Newsom said. “In fact, we’ll be eliminating those mandates. There will be guidelines and recommendations.”
But he added, “For indoor activities we will still have likely some guidelines and mandates.
But we hope sooner than later those will be lifted as well.”
California now requires masks in most indoor settings outside the home and on public transit, both for unvaccinated and vaccinated people, to curb the spread of coronavirus droplets and particles. Unvaccinated people should also wear masks outdoors when they can’t maintain physical distancing, the state says.
Some public health experts expressed concern that it might be too early to lift the indoor mandate, especially with global coronavirus case counts still on the rise. But others said doing so would be a reflection of the state’s progress against the pandemic.
“I don’t think we’re quite ready,” said Shannon Bennett, chief of science at the California Academy of Sciences. “We’re not all vaccinated. We are still dealing with new variants in the U.S. that are increasing in proportion. I worry that we’re getting overly excited about reopening.”
California says it will end most pandemic restrictions June 15 if coronavirus hospitalizations are “stable and low” and if vaccines continue to be widely available. County health departments would be free to impose more stringent rules, though they have followed the state’s lead in most cases.
“I think it’s good to have a line in the sand to know when we finish,” said Dr. George Rutherford, an infectious disease expert at UCSF. “This is about the statewide mandate. Counties and cities can always do something more stringent. It lets the local health departments add additional restrictions as needed.”
But Dr. Karen Relucio, the Napa County health officer, said she had understood that the indoor mask mandate would stay in place indefinitely and was surprised by Newsom’s comments Tuesday. She said that if capacity limits on businesses and other indoor operations are removed with the June 15 reopening — which means people often won’t be able to maintain physical distance — masking would continue to be important.
“We would think that masking is going to be a mainstay of prevention, along with vaccinations and testing among the vaccinated,” Relucio said. “The only way that you can ensure business and schools are opening at full capacity is to eliminate social distancing, and if that’s the case, then what do you have left if you don’t have masks? I would think that would have been the last thing to go.”
California, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak over the winter, logged 1,231 confirmed infections Wednesday, down from roughly 60,000 at its peak.
“If the trajectory of the pandemic that we’re on continues, and if the percentage of people vaccinated continues to rise, we may very well be in a position to not mandate indoor maskwearing unless there are large groups. These are two big ‘ifs,’ ” said Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley.
Relucio said it was too soon to say whether she might keep a mandate in place for Napa County, but she didn’t relish taking on that decisionmaking burden.
“It’s safe to say that a lot of local health officers are kind of done doing these public health orders,” Relucio said. “We’ve all taken a lot of heat, and some health officers have taken abuse and threats.”
Fourteen states, mostly with Republican governors, have already abandoned facecovering requirements as well as other coronavirus protocols. Eleven states never issued mask mandates.
Dr. Susan Philip, the San Francisco health officer, said she’s eager to lift the local mask mandate but can’t yet say that the city would be ready to do that by June 15.
“Removing masks indoors and letting people do all the things they miss doing indoors and outdoors — I’m hopeful for that,” Philip said. “I’m also reserving my clear predictions. My goal is to get us to be able to remove those restrictions, but I don’t have an exact timeline yet.”
Philip said it’s encouraging that Newsom is talking about lifting mask mandates, as a sign that the pandemic is winding down. But she said she also recognizes that some people may want to keep wearing theirs.
“We understand some people are eager and some are nervous,” Philip said. “We’ll be thinking about this very carefully, and wanting to be as health protective as possible, but recognizing we’re in a different era now. The vaccines make such a difference.”
In California, 36% of the population has been fully vaccinated, and another 16.5% of residents have received at least one shot, according to Chronicle tracking data. The state’s positivity rate — the number of people tested for the coronavirus who have it — stands at 1%.
Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at UCSF who is advising the Biden administration on when to lift national mask rules, said Newsom’s vague wording is frustrating.
“I would have put a clean metric on this,” she said. “My metric for lifting inside mask mandates is 70% of first vaccination rate and an average of 1.8 cases per 100,000.” The current rate statewide is about 5 cases per 100,000.
She said California will have no problem hitting that metric by June 15.
Ending the state’s mask mandate would have little effect on BART, Muni and other public transit agencies. The federal Transportation Security Administration recently extended its face mask requirement for airports and transit systems through Sept. 13.
That mandate will take precedence over state rules.
Aidin Vaziri and Erin Allday are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: avaziri@ sfchronicle.com eallday@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MusicSF @erinallday