Indoor mask mandate is back
7 Bay Area counties renew order as cases top last summer’s surge
Bay Area residents will once again be required to wear masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status, to help stem transmission of the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus, county officials announced Monday.
Health officers for seven of the nine counties in the region — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Sonoma — and the city of Berkeley, which has its own health department, brought back the restriction to tackle the delta variant’s rapid spread.
The order, announced at a joint news conference, was set to go into effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. It affects more than 7 million residents in the region.
“Indoor masking is a temporary measure that will help us deal with the delta variant, which is causing a sharp increase in cases and we know increases in hospitalizations and deaths will follow,” said Dr. Naveena Bobba, San Francisco’s acting health officer.
The Bay Area has been averaging more than 1,400
cases a day over the past several days, surpassing the peak of last year’s summer surge in midAugust. Regional hospitalizations have not yet reached last summer’s peak but are not far off — 815 people were in the hospital with COVID on July 28 last year, compared with 713 on Sunday. COVID deaths in the Bay Area, however, at about five a day, are well below last summer’s peak of 20 a day.
Last year, no vaccines were available, but the Bay Area was still under multiple public health restrictions, including a regional mask mandate, bans on large gatherings and reduced capacity in most indoor settings. This year, vaccines are widespread but almost all public health measures had been lifted before Monday’s mask announcement.
The health officials emphasized that vaccination remains the best weapon against the spread of the virus, but that masks are a strong tool while many people remain unvaccinated. Solano and Napa counties did not join their neighbors in the new mask mandate.
The new health orders require wearing wellfitting masks in all public settings. The orders vary slightly by county: Santa Clara County, for instance, also mandates face coverings for all in private indoor settings outside the immediate household, except for allowed activities such as eating or drinking.
Masks should also be worn in densely populated outdoor spaces. Officials recommend that all employers make face coverings available to individuals entering their businesses. Businesses are required to implement and enforce the indoor mask order.
“The goal of these orders is to avoid disrupting our businesses’ continued operations and residents’ everyday activities,” Dr. Lisa Santora, deputy health officer for Marin County.
She also stressed ensuring a safe return to school as soon as this month, even though delta appears to affect children more severely than previous strains of the virus.
The health officers confirmed that the mask mandate applies to shared office spaces, including when working in cubicles, but not necessarily to someone working in a private office with a closed door.
Californians for seven weeks have been free of most pandemic restrictions as cases and hospitalizations bottomed out throughout the state.
Now, unvaccinated people are flooding hospitals, and evidence finds even fully vaccinated people contracting and spreading the virus — a disheartening setback as cases rise faster than at any other time in the pandemic. Vaccinated people are less likely to have severe COVID outcomes, but can still spread the virus and be hospitalized.
“We are alarmed at the rate at which COVID19 patients are filling our community hospital beds,” Dr. Chris Farnitano, health officer for Contra Costa County, said at the Monday briefing.
Farnitano said the county’s COVID patients doubled in number over the past 10 days and increased by more than 400% in July. Four out of 5 of the patients are unvaccinated, he said.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged that people wear masks indoors in areas with high or substantial transmission of the virus, based on a report that found the delta variant is as contagious as chicken pox. Those areas include the entire Bay Area.
Dr. Sundari Mase, Sonoma County health officer, said the requirement for masking is important because the Bay Area is facing “a much more aggressive and contagious opponent” in delta, which is 60% more transmissible than previous virus strains and accounts for 95% of the current cases.
“This is not the same virus we were combating last year,” she said. “We definitely hope people are going to take this order seriously and protect themselves and the community.”
In Sonoma County, 86% of COVID patients are unvaccinated, and of those in intensive care, “100% are people who had the opportunity to be vaccinated but chose not to,” Mase said. “This is really tragic given the widespread availability of vaccines throughout the Bay Area.”
Bay Area hospitalizations are at about a third of the winter peaks, but climbing. Deaths are also below the peak of 60 a day but are now averaging five a day compared to just one a month ago.
Mask mandates are already in effect in Los Angeles, Yolo and Sacramento counties.
“We wish we weren’t in this place right now having to make this order. But what’s happened is the virus has changed,” said Dr. George
Han, health officer for Santa Clara County. He urged that people wear surgical or wellfitting cloth masks. “Because it’s more contagious we need more protection. That comes in the form of masks.”
The health officials emphasized indoor restaurant dining is still allowed — with guidance in place from earlier in the pandemic regarding wearing a mask unless sitting at a table eating and drinking. However, they recommended people avoid highrisk settings like indoor restaurants, nightclubs and movie theaters.
Santora said even where vaccination rates are high, like Marin County, delta is so infectious that everyone must mask up.
“We have one of the highest rates of vaccination in the nation,” she said. “And we still are seeing the need for additional supports like the universal masking to reduce transmission and to support businesses staying open.”
Farnitano said that during the winter surge, Bay Area hospitals got “perilously close to full” — a scenario counties want to avoid by imposing a mask mandate now.
“Last year, there were great hopes that we could with highly effective vaccines achieve what some people call herd immunity or community immunity. There were some predictions that if you got 70% to 80% of the population vaccinated that’d be sufficient. But unfortunately, delta has taught us that those numbers are not sufficient,” Farnitano said, noting the grim spikes in cases even where vaccination rates are high.
“What we are really hoping with vaccines is to protect people from severe illness,” he added. “The hope that we’d be able to achieve herd immunity is unfortunately not really feasible at this point.”