Sonoma County, six other Bay Area counties reinstate indoor mask mandate
Amid a persistent surge of coronavirus cases, public health officials in Sonoma County and six other Bay Area counties, plus the city of Berkeley, Monday ordered all residents in the region to again wear face coverings indoors in public settings, regardless of vaccination status.
The mask mandate takes effect at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday.
“We hope that people are going to take this order seriously and protect themselves and their community,” Dr. Sundari Mase, Sonoma County’s health officer, said during a joint press conference of Bay Area public health officials.
Mase and her peers said it will be up to employers and businesses to enforce the mandate to help the region get a grip on the high infectious pandemic disease that once again is widely circulating in communities.
“We’ll work closely with our employers and our businesses to ensure that this occurs in our public spaces,” she said of mask wearing.
On the day the mask mandate was ordered, Sonoma County reported another coronavirus death of an unvaccinated person. A man between 50 and 64 with underlying health problems died at a local hospital July 26. His death is the 12th local fatality in July and the 331st in the county since the pandemic began in March 2020.
Officials said face coverings indoors block transmission of the virus. Taking this public health action now is crucial as the more contagious delta variant of the coronavirus is rapidly spreading throughout the Bay Area and beyond. The delta strain, a highly transmissible mutation, is thought to be 60% more contagious than the previously dominant coronavirus mutation.
The mask requirement is aimed at halting that spread. Public health leaders in Sonoma, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara counties, as well as Berkeley, each issued a similar order requiring mask wearing.
Notably absent, Napa and Solano counties decided to continue with a recommendation of mask wearing inside public places rather than escalate to an order. The mandates will remain in effect until virus-related hospitalizations subside in the respective areas.
Indoor masking rules had been in place in the Bay Area since early in the pandemic in spring 2020, but were lifted for vaccinated individuals in California on June 15, when Gov. Gavin Newsom fully reopened the state. Only a month later, Bay Area counties were urging residents, even those vaccinated, to once again don their face coverings.
Businesses are required to implement the indoor mask mandate. Also, public health officials recommended all employers make face coverings available to employees and individuals entering their workplaces. Officials said office workers in their own cubicles near colleagues should wear masks, but those who have enclosed offices can work without face coverings.
Dr. Lisa Santora, deputy health officer of Marin County, said the goal of this public health action is to avoid further disruption to local businesses and residents’ daily activities.
“Masking is a simple and effective tool to support us in this battle” against the pandemic disease, Santora said. “And, we also are all focusing on a safer return to school this fall.”
Santora said the delta strain of the coronavirus, which is now raging across the country, has sharply boosted transmission rates of COVID-19, even in areas with enviable vaccination rates, such as Marin County. That county has 86.5% of residents 12 and older fully inoculated compared with the 70.4% share of fully vaccinated residents in Sonoma County.
Since April, she said, the share of “breakthrough” virus infections among fully vaccinated people has doubled each month. Because of the challenges posed by the more contagious delta strain, “nonpharmaceutical interventions like masking are needed to reduce transmission of the delta variant and keep our schools open this year,” Santora said.
Kristen Rodriguez, an attorney from Orange County who was shopping at the Healdsburg Running Company on Monday, supports mask wearing. Rodriguez, 38, said her employer recently reinstated mandatory face coverings.
“It’s the safest course of action to make sure we’re protecting everyone in our community,” she said.
Skip Brand, owner of the running shop, said he thought businesses and local residents will fall right back into the habit of wearing face coverings indoors.
At Fideaux, a pet boutique in Healdsburg for dogs and cats, Rena Charles, 40, of Santa Rosa, and her partner Alex Klado, 42, wore masks while they shopped, although several customers did not.
Charles, who manages the nearby Aerena Galleries & Gardens, said she had a feeling a mask mandate would be coming, given the recent spike in COVID-19 cases.
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