Bay Area mask warrants: Health officials issue guidelines to end restrictions

Health workers in the nine Bay Area jurisdictions that require face coverings in most indoor public spaces reached consensus on Thursday on criteria for lifting the orders.

Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Sonoma, and the City of Berkeley counties will waive the interior masking requirement in public spaces not subject to state and federal masking rules when any the following occurs:

• Jurisdiction reaches moderate COVID-19 transmission level (yellow), as defined by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), and remains there for at least three weeks
• COVID-19 hospitalizations in jurisdiction low and stable, health worker says
• 80% of the total population of the jurisdiction is fully vaccinated with two doses of Pfizer or Moderna or one dose of Johnson & Johnson (booster doses not taken into account)
• OR Eight weeks have passed since a COVID-19 vaccine was cleared for emergency use by federal and state authorities for 5 to 11 year olds

Why is there an eight week window?

“Because it will take at least that long for children to start receiving their two doses, they are three weeks apart and it takes you about a week to be fully immunized,” said Dr Yvonne Maldonado, professor of pediatrics. and infectious diseases at Stanford. Disease doctor.

Bay Area residents react to possibility of relaxing mask guidelines

Cody says the measurements were designed to be simple but comprehensive.

“We basically want to make sure that we have many layers of prevention, we want to make sure that the vaccination layer is really sturdy before we take the masking layer off,” Cody said.

Santa Clara County is currently in the CDC orange level, but transmission is tending to drop.

RELATED: Los Angeles Passes One of the Toughest COVID Vaccine Mandates in the United States

“I think it will be difficult to say when we will meet the three parameters,” said Cody.

Cody says the most important measure to be met will be the vaccination requirement – adding some counties will get there faster.

“We are seeing 900 to 1,000 new first-dose vaccinations across the county every day,” said Dr Chris Farnitano, Contra Costa’s health manager.

Farnitano says if that pace continues, the county could hit the 80% mark within two to three months.

“We can look at December or maybe even January depending on when the FDA clears it,” he said.

RELATED: Solano Co. Defends Past Decision To Keep Businesses Open

All Bay Area counties and the City of Berkeley have adopted these guidelines except Solano County. Health worker Dr Bela Matyas says he is upholding his decision not to implement an indoor mask warrant.

“None of the counties that had such a mask mandate showed any advantage,” said Matyas. “All should have seen a reduction in disease in at most two weeks, none of them did.”

So far, no county in the Bay Area meets the qualifications for all three measures. Health workers say even if the warrants are lifted, that won’t stop individual companies from imposing their own restrictions.

RELATED: SF General Hospital Says 115 Staff Overdue While Waiting For Immunization Status

Separately from other Bay Area jurisdictions, SF has announced a more immediate easing of masking requirements starting October 15 in certain selected indoor environments where stable groups of fully vaccinated people congregate. These settings include offices, gymnasiums and fitness centers, employee commuter vehicles, religious gatherings and indoor university classes or other organized gatherings of individuals who meet regularly, not exceeding 100 people.

Currently, every county in the Bay Area is in the orange tier, meaning no county is eligible to relax restrictions for three weeks.

Lifting a local indoor mask mandate would not prevent businesses, nonprofits, churches or others with public indoor spaces from imposing their own demands.

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