Doubts about schools linger
New mask rules: State to rely on honor system despite some concerns
California will mostly rely on the honor system to enforce new masking rules that let vaccinated people forgo face coverings in almost all settings starting next Tuesday, when the state fully reopens, public health authorities said.
The guidance announced Wednesday was mostly confirming, and adding some clarification to, previously revealed plans to align with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on mask mandates. The CDC said last month that fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks except in particularly risky spaces,
such as on public transit and in nursing homes, jails and shelters.
The changes go into effect in California on Tuesday, the day the state lifts almost all pandemic restrictions. Shortly after the state announced its mask guidelines, San Francisco officials said they intended to go along with them, too.
Public health and infectious disease experts largely have supported the state’s plans, even amid concerns that many unvaccinated people would take advantage of the guidance and stop wearing masks, too. About 45% of the state is fully vaccinated, though that could reach 50% by Tuesday. About 54% of Californians 12 and older who are eligible for vaccination have been fully immunized.
California stopped requiring face coverings in most outdoor settings, except for very crowded conditions, in early May. The new guidance therefore applies mostly to indoor spaces.
One baffling complication remains: Who will be required to wear masks in workplace settings like office spaces, warehouses and employee break rooms, and under what conditions. California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA, previously ruled that even workers who are fully vaccinated would have to wear masks indoors if a single unvaccinated person were in the same room.
The agency met again Wednesday evening to revisit those rules, at least partly in response to a letter from the California Department of Public Health noting discrepancies between the state’s guidance and Cal/ OSHA’s decision. The agency voted late Wednesday to rescind its earlier decision, but it put off until next week a second vote to install new guidance that likely would mirror recommendations by the state public health department and the CDC. Instead, Cal/OSHA’s earlier, more rigorous guidance, which requires masks for all workers at all times regardless of vaccination status, will remain in place for at least two more weeks.
The state public health department offered businesses and other spaces where people gather three options for dealing with mask enforcement once the mandate goes away: post signs advising people that they must wear masks if they are not vaccinated, and if they don’t have a face covering, assume that they are vaccinated; develop their own vaccination verification system; or require everyone to wear masks.
The largest single group of unvaccinated people in California is children under age 12, who are not yet eligible for the federally authorized vaccines. It should be easy to enforce continued mask wearing in that group, said Dr. George Rutherford, an infectious disease expert at UCSF.
But for everyone else, it will be impossible to tell without proof who is vaccinated and who is not.
“Do I believe an honor system will basically work?” Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of California health and human services, said in a news briefing Wednesday. “I think all systems for verification are fraught with some challenges.”
He noted that business owners who are concerned about outbreaks among unvaccinated people not wearing masks can continue to require face coverings. “Some business owners very well may decide that the honor system is not sufficient and they’re going to require all patrons to wear masks,” Ghaly said.
Rutherford said he suspects most businesses will go with the honor system as far as requiring masks for customers. “People walking in and out of the stores on Union Square, they’re not going to bother with it. Restaurants will welcome not having to worry about masks,” he said.
But other places where the risk of transmission is higher — such as churches or movie theaters, where people are close together indoors for a long time — may opt for a verification system, he said, if only to make visitors feel more comfortable.