California to adopt CDC mask guidance June 15
Delay allows for state’s ‘relentless focus on delivering vaccines’
California is taking no chances. The Golden State will continue requiring people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to wear masks in public — both indoors and in crowded outdoor settings — until June 15, rather than immediately adopting last week’s much looser guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Monday’s announcement puts California at odds with many other states, but officials here insist it will allow the state to keep its focus on getting more Californians vaccinated before the masks come off.
“On June 15, California will follow the CDC guidelines,” Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of Health and Human Services, said Monday. “This four-week period will give Californians time to prepare for this change while we continue our relentless focus on delivering vaccines.”
Mask rules will change here at the same time the state plans to end its color-coded tiered restrictions on businesses and personal gatherings and activities. Some health experts cheered the news, saying it was a sensible transition for the state that was once at the center of the country’s
COVID-19 outbreak in January and now has among the lowest case rates in the nation. Nearly 50% of those age 16 and over are fully vaccinated, and nearly 61% have received at least one dose.
But California’s delay on adopting the CDC guidance didn’t sit well with some Bay Area residents who have grown weary with the confusion and restrictions of pandemic life. Matt Doherty, 62, a retiree who was outside a San Jose Trader Joe’s with his blue face mask in a shirt pocket, accused Gov. Gavin Newsom of ignoring the country’s chief health experts.
“He’s completely detached from reality,” Doherty said. “He’s claiming he knows more than the CDC.”
Others like James Goulden, 33, who also was at that San Jose Trader Joe’s, were frustrated with the conflicting and shifting rules.
“I am ready to take this thing off,” said Goulden, a fire prevention equipment installer, from behind his black mask in the store parking lot. “Everyone else is getting their breaks, but we’ve still got the cuffs on.”
But Nihir Parikh, 41, of Fremont, who went to a Trader Joe’s for some yogurt and veggie patties Monday, was relieved the state is waiting a month to loosen its mask guidance. Even though he’s fully vaccinated, wearing a mask would give comfort to others in stores who wouldn’t know that.
“I don’t want to get in any confrontation with anyone over a mask,” he said.
The CDC said Thursday that people who are fully vaccinated against the virus no longer need to wear masks outdoors or even in most indoor settings, a major revision of earlier, stricter guidance that had been criticized as overly cautious. The fully vaccinated are those who are two weeks past their last required COVID-19 vaccine dose.
The CDC just two weeks earlier had recommended fully vaccinated people continue to wear masks indoors in all settings and while outdoors in large crowds.
California’s rules as of May 3 largely aligned with that earlier CDC guidance, stating that face coverings are not required for fully vaccinated people outdoors except when attending crowded events such as live performances, parades, fairs, festivals, sports events or other similar settings. Those rules maintained that face coverings are required for indoor settings outside of people’s homes, including public transportation, regardless of vaccination status.
Bay Area county health officials have said they would follow direction from the state.
Nationally, Texas and at least a dozen other states have allowed statewide mask mandates to expire. A growing number of states — including Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington — have indicated they will follow the CDC’s new guidance. New York state said Monday it will follow the CDC’s new mask guidance for fully vaccinated people starting Wednesday.
Since the CDC’s mask revision, a number of retailers have dropped mask requirements for customers except where it would conflict with state or local law, including Walmart, Costco, Trader Joe’s and Starbucks.
Some health experts, such as UC San Francisco’s Dr. Monica Gandhi, cheered the CDC’s revision last week, arguing the earlier guidance conflicted with recent science and made people question the benefit of vaccines. But others, including National Nurses United, the country’s largest union of registered nurses, have been critical of the CDC, arguing the move to relax mask-wearing was premature.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky defended the agency’s mask guidance update over the weekend, arguing it is based on the latest science showing that vaccines are effective against circulating variants of the coronavirus and that they block its transmission.
The CDC’s update last week did advise that everyone — vaccinated or not — “continue to wear a well-fitted mask in correctional facilities and homeless shelters,” in health care settings and “on all planes, buses, trains and other forms of public transportation.” Children and those with weakened immune systems who aren’t vaccinated must continue to wear masks in crowded public settings, the CDC said.
The CDC also clarified over the weekend that it hasn’t changed its mask guidance for schools. Most teachers and staff who were prioritized for immunization have by now been fully vaccinated, but students under age 12 are not yet eligible.
And that’s what concerns Julie Safford, an Oakley mother of a 7-year-old and 3-year-old who said she is still going to wear a mask for a while, having become convinced they effectively ward off COVID-19 as well as influenza.
“I don’t worry as much now that I am vaccinated,” Safford said, while shopping at Trader Joe’s in Brentwood, “but I 100% worry about my children.”
Ghaly said “in no way are we saying the science or guidance from the CDC is wrong” and that the delay “just gives the state time to have it implemented with a high degree of integrity.”
A key implementation question is whether and how to verify if someone has had the shots. Those who are vaccinated are issued CDC confirmation cards, but they can easily be faked.
A verifiable “vaccine passport” system has been controversial. Ghaly said Monday the state was looking into the idea but made no commitment whether California would adopt one.
“This is exactly why we are giving California time to prepare,” Ghaly said, “and think through the implementation.”