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SANTA MONICA, Calif .– As the sun began to scorch through the morning marine layer, patrons of the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, Calif. Were still adjusting to the new normal, which was pretty much the old normal – an order from Los Angeles County must wear masks indoors in businesses and public places.
Most customers dutifully put on and took off their masks at the entrance to stores, where signs were posted to remind them of the policy and where, in some cases, free masks were offered. Out-of-state tourists found themselves wearing masks for the first time in months, sometimes annoyed but largely obedient, and a restaurant worker who forgot the warrant was able to obtain a mask while crossing the street and asking Starbucks employees if they had any extras.
“Some people think it’s a punishment,” said Lisa Liu, 38, who said she was fully immunized. She was shopping on Sunday and was interviewed outside a clothing store called Tazga. “But for me, it’s a mask – that’s okay.”
It wasn’t what people expected when the previous term was lifted a month ago, but for the most part Los Angeles residents seemed to react with resigned acceptance, sometimes even weary approval, believing that rising Covid-19 rates made the policy tolerable, if not welcome.
The move was greeted with caution by some shop and restaurant workers, fearing that it would have to re-enforce policies with customers resistant to masks. Still, some seemed ready to do it
Anna Ituh, 50, said her bosses at a local retail store asked her to ask customers to put on a mask at their entrance, but that she was not allowed to insist that they do so. Still, she described a confrontation in which she asked a customer to leave the store.
“I’m not playing with it,” she said. “I’m that person who will tell them.
The indoor mask mandate for all people, regardless of vaccination status, went into effect at midnight on Saturday, making Los Angeles County the first major county in the United States to reinstate such a requirement. The policy extends beyond the current state standard and the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; both require masks for unvaccinated people but not for those who are fully vaccinated.
The number of coronavirus cases has risen sharply under the less stringent guidelines, especially as the highly transmissible Delta variant continues to spread. The daily average of new cases in the county has more than doubled in each of the past two weeks, reaching nearly 1,400 on Saturday, and Covid hospitalizations have increased 27%, according to a New York Times database. Still, the numbers are far lower than the county’s winter peak and daily deaths have remained single digits.
“When you look at the past seven days, obviously a lot has changed,” Hilda L. Solis, chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, said on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday. Ms Solis called the increase in Covid cases “very worrying”.
“I’m not happy that we have to start using the mask again in this case, but it will save lives,” she said.
However, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said in a statement Friday that his officers would not enforce the warrant.
“Forcing the vaccinated and those who have already contracted Covid-19 to wear masks indoors is not supported by science,” wrote Sheriff Villanueva. The statement said his department “will not spend our limited resources and instead seek voluntary compliance.”
Ms Hollis said the responsibility for law enforcement lay with the county public health department, adding that “the public at large is intelligent enough to understand what is being said and how to protect themselves.”
The department can issue a notice of violation or citation to companies that violate the mandate, but county spokeswoman Natalie Jimenez said in an email on Saturday that “education and information sharing “would be the main approaches of the department.
On the gleaming Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, a sense of unease hung in the air as stores started opening late Sunday morning. Outside of Louis Vuitton, customers checked in and handed over masks if they weren’t already wearing them.
“No one is fighting us over this, which is good so far; it’s early, ”said Jasmine Garcia, the store’s concierge, adding that the store had tightened its security measures. “It’s gotten pretty bad,” she said of how some customers behaved before the restrictions were lifted last month.
At a nearby art gallery, which sells paintings by Dalí, Picasso and Matisse, Brynlie Johnston, a research assistant, said she resented her and other staff members who had to uphold the mandate. “I’m too scared to tell people to put them on,” she said. “They will yell at you.”
Another staff member, Richard Rice, said he probably wouldn’t ask people to wear masks. “I think that joining a mask mandate belongs more to the individual than to the institution,” he said. “I am not the mask police.”
In Chaumont, a nearby vegan bakery, a line of largely masked people meandered through the tiny storefront. A client, Melissa Fry, who was unmasked and said she felt frustrated with the new rules as other states returned to normal. “I had the Covid so I didn’t feel like I needed the vaccine,” she said, adding that even if she hadn’t gotten sick, she still wouldn’t have been vaccinated.
Her friend Sarah Robarts, who had a gray mask on her face, disagreed. “If it’s for the good of the whole,” she said. “We have to do it, and I’ll deal with it, embarrassing as it is for me personally.”
Keeping track of ever-changing policies and recommendations has been a year-long challenge for Los Angeles County residents.
County health officials came under public pressure in January, when the decision to continue vaccinating only health workers contradicted a state announcement on the eligibility of adults 65 and older. A few days later, the county reversed its strategy.
In June, just two weeks after Gov. Gavin Newsom lifted California’s mask mandate as part of the state’s “grand reopening”, county health officials issued a statement “strongly” recommending that all vaccinated people wear masks indoors, despite the relaxed restrictions. California gives counties the option to impose stricter restrictions locally, but the state has upheld the CDC’s recommendation that fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks indoors in most situations .
The vaccination rate in Los Angeles County is above the national average, with more than 69% of residents receiving at least one dose and 61% being fully immunized. But with millions still unvaccinated, local officials said the renewed mandate was needed.
“Waiting until we are at a high level of community transmission before making a change would be too late,” Los Angeles County health worker Muntu Davis said Thursday.
At the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown, the 70th-floor lobby was packed Saturday night with a hundred revelers, about half of whom were unmasked.
On Sunday mid-morning, a dozen guests gathered in the lobby, all in masks except for one tourist, who was at a window taking a selfie. Near the check-in counter, the concierge was handing out face coverings to “comply with the warrant,” he said.
In an elevator, three unmasked men on vacation from Tunisia, who said they had been vaccinated, instantly produced blue surgical masks and put them on when told of the warrant coming into force.
“Better safe than sorry,” said a guest wearing a black mask and training gear who identified himself as a Korean Air pilot.
Yet the relative tolerance varied from place to place.
In Santa Clarita, a relatively conservative area northwest of downtown Los Angeles, fewer people wore masks and more were unhappy with them.
“It’s a very red area,” said Stacey Simmons, a psychotherapist who ate hash potatoes at a local cafe. “Here, people are kind of anti-vaccine. “
At nearby Marci’s Sports Bar & Grill, where American flags hung behind the bar and hardly anyone wore a mask, some customers complained about the new rules and others said they didn’t know something had changed.
“You hear so much stuff, you don’t know what to believe, really,” said John Galloway, who was sitting in the bar’s courtyard.
Giulia Heyward and Shawn Hubler contributed reporting.
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