There is a growing chorus from public health officials across the country this week, and it consists of a single word: “Masks.”
Barbara Ferrer, Los Angeles County Director of Public Health on a Zoom with reporters, advised today, “Everyone two years and older should wear a mask at indoor and indoor gatherings, such as businesses, restaurants, and indoors at schools.”
Similarly, last Friday, a group of Bay Area health officials issued a rare joint statement strongly advising – but not requiring – residents to wear face coverings indoors again.
“If you’ve chosen not to wear a mask in indoor public places lately, now is a good time to start over,” Dr. George Han, deputy health officer for Santa Clara County at the San Francisco Chronicle.
A little further south, the Pacific Grove Unified School District in Monterey, California, on Monday decided to require all students and staff to wear masks indoors starting Tuesday as infections increase there.
School districts in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Illinois did the same this week.
Top officials in the Biden administration warned on Wednesday that a third of Americans live in communities the CDC says are at high risk (orange on the map below) and recommends masks be mandatory in those areas.
CDC
“We urge local leaders to encourage the use of prevention strategies such as masks in indoor public settings and increase access to tests and treatments,” said Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About two weeks ago, the CDC released a new recommendation that masks should be worn by all persons two years old “in indoor areas of public transportation (such as airplanes, trains, etc.) and transportation hubs (such as airports, stations, etc.). ).” The CDC also encouraged people to wear face coverings “in crowded or poorly ventilated locations, such as airport jetways.”
New York City, which had some of the strictest requirements last year, won’t be returning to masks, even though it moved into the high-risk category this week amid a spate of hospitalizations. Mayor Eric Adams said he doesn’t want to mandate masks, even though the CDC recommends it.
“If with every variant that comes, we go into a shutdown mindset, we panic, we’re not going to function as a city,” Adams said, according to the New York Times.
Would he consider them for schools? “No,” Adams replied.
The answer is different in LA, where Ferrer has reiterated this past week, plus a version of what she said today, “Once we’re designated as a high-level community, we’ll mandate those masks indoors again.”
The county isn’t there yet, but the rising rate of Covid spread in Los Angeles caused it to be moved from the CDC’s “low” virus level to “medium” today.
According to federal and provincial data, the local cumulative seven-day number of new Covid cases rose to 202 per 100,000 population, from about 176 per 100,000 last week. With the number exceeding 200, the county is now considered an “intermediate” community level, a designation that comes with recommendations for heightened precautions against the spread of viruses.
However, the move will not lead to immediate changes to local health regulations. LA had already ramped up precautionary recommendations consistent with CDC guidelines — such as masks on public transportation and high-risk environments such as hospitals, doctors’ surgeries and homeless shelters.
“We hope that by implementing strong prevention measures in the community, we avoid going to the top,” Ferrer told reporters.
That means “companies and individuals are not shying away from stricter security measures,” she said, noting that these include indoor masking.
According to CDC guidelines, counties in the medium category will become too high if the rate of new virus-related hospitalizations reaches 10 per 100,000 residents, or if 10% of the county’s staffed hospital beds are occupied by COVID-positive patients.
Ferrer said today that the current number of new Covid admissions in the province is 3.4 per 100,000 inhabitants, and the number of hospital beds occupied by COVID-positive patients is just under 1.7%.
However, about a week ago, daily hospitalizations of people with Covid began to creep in in the region. From 252 last Thursday, they rose to 312 virus-positive patients in provincial hospitals as of this Monday, 327 on Tuesday, 363 Wednesday and 379 today. While the numbers are still relatively small, that’s an increase of about 50% in one week.
Over the same period, the number of cases rose from 3,407 last Thursday to 4,725 today, a 38% increase in one week.
The average daily number of people testing positive for the virus, while still relatively low, rose 34% from a 7-day average testing positivity from 2.6% last Thursday to 3.5% today.
As hospital admissions generally lag a few weeks behind infections, a rising case and test positivity seems to indicate a substantial increase in Covid-related hospitalizations towards the end of the month.
City News Service contributed to this report.
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