BART lifts its COVID mask mandate Monday — again

With cases surging in the Bay Area, some health experts say the pause is 'non-sensical'

The Bay Area's most onagain, off-again COVID mask mandate is … off again starting Monday.

BART will lift its masking requirement for riders for the second time in three months. But the transit agency's leaders say that if the current wave gets worse, the mandate could be back again.

Letting the mandate expire now confounds some Bay Area epidemiologists who see the decision as “nonsensical” at a moment when COVID-19 case counts are once again surging.

When BART leadership decided last spring to extend its mask rules to July 18, the Board of Directors cited safety concerns for immunocompromised riders and children under the age of 5 who could not yet be vaccinated.

But while toddlers gained access to vaccines on June 17, most other public health metrics have only worsened in the intervening months. Case counts are the highest they have been since early February, and experts are warning that the latest omicron variant, BA.5, is the most infectious and transmissible yet.

“Not having a requirement will definitely bring some added stress,” Puneet Singh said through a blue mask on his ride Friday from Milpitas to San Francisco, something that he will continue to do even after the requirement lifts. Singh admits that his own stance on masks had relaxed in recent months until his friends started coming down with COVID in rapid succession in July.

Rebecca Saltzman, the BART board president and an advocate for stricter masking requirements in the past, said that the board decided against holding a special meeting to extend the mandate last week. Rider compliance with the masking requirement has steadily declined as the mandate has dragged on, she said, leading some on the board to question whether prolonging the mandate would even make a difference.

And because every Bay Area county has eliminated their masking mandates, BART has had a tough time making the case to riders that a requirement is still necessary, Saltzman said.

“We shouldn't be the ones having to make this decision alone,” she said. “That decision should be coming from our counties.”

Saltzman said BART was faced with a decision between keeping a partiallyeffective mandate in place and saving requirements for moments of acute COVID-19 concern. “We need to be ready if there's a bigger surge in the fall or winter to be ready to implement something that people will follow again,” she said.

But that does not mean that a BART mandate won't be back soon. On July 28, the board is scheduled to decide whether to grant authority over mask requirements to the agency's general manager, Bob Powers. If public health conditions necessitate another requirement, Saltzman said, Powers is prepared to reintroduce it.

For at least the 10 days between Monday and the upcoming board meeting, however, BART will replace the requirement with a “strong recommendation,” leaving AC Transit as the only Bay Area public transit agency with a mandate still in place.

Dr. George Rutherford, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco, is concerned that any day without a mandate in place presents a risk that decision-makers cannot afford to take, especially now. The Bay Area is currently experiencing the biggest surge in cases since the original omicron peak in January. With cases and hospitalizations mounting, Los Angeles County is considering reintroducing its indoor masking mandates by the end of the month. Confined spaces like public transit vehicles are the most vulnerable to rapid spread during surges like this, Rutherford said.

“I can't understand it,” Rutherford said of BART's decision. “From a diseasecontrol standpoint, lifting the requirement doesn't make a lot of sense, given where we are right now.”

Not everyone agrees. Cases are undoubtedly on the climb again, but hospitalizations are far below this winter's omicron surge. So some health experts say that easing restrictions could actually help enforcement in the long run. Dr. Bob Wachter, chair of UCSF's Department of Medicine, said if inconsistent mandates across the county are not going to substantially change how many people mask up, it might be worth saving a requirement until the region is prepared for an all-out masking push.

“The tolerance of the public for continued mandates is obviously low, and I think we should reserve them for times when we absolutely need them,” Wachter said. “We still need to have the option to implement the mandate as a circuit-breaker if our hospitals get overwhelmed.”

Mindy Hernandez, a police officer working on a northbound BART train on Friday, said enforcing a punitive mask mandate has become unrealistic in recent months. She estimated that 8 in 10 riders regularly wear their masks in the morning, but BART police are not forcing riders who refuse to leave the train. Instead, Hernandez said that she and other police officers have been instructed to offer passengers a mask and ask them to put it on. If the riders protest, there's not much else the police can do, she said.

“We don't want to have a hands-on conflict with someone over a mask,” Hernandez said.

“From a disease-control standpoint, lifting the requirement doesn't make a lot of sense, given where we are right now.”

— Dr. George Rutherford, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco