SAN FRANCISCO —
With the Omicron coronavirus surge rapidly receding, California will lift its universal mask mandate for indoor public places next week, state officials announced Monday.
The lifting of the mandate will apply to counties without local mask orders of their own, such as San Diego, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, as well as swaths of the San Joaquin Valley. Counties can still opt to retain local mask orders, as Los Angeles County will do.
While this move doesn’t mean face coverings will be a thing of the past — they still will be required for unvaccinated residents indoors and for everyone in select settings, such as nursing homes or while aboard public transit — relaxing the roughly two-month-old order reflects the progress California has made in its battle against Omicron, even as officials say continued vigilance will be vital in keeping the state on the right track.
“Omicron has loosened its hold on California, vaccines for children under 5 are around the corner and access to COVID-19 treatments is improving,” said Dr. Tomás J. Aragón, the state’s director of public health and health officer. “With things moving in the right direction, we are making responsible modifications to COVID-19 prevention measures, while also continuing to develop a longer-term action plan for the state.”
California’s existing indoor mask mandate will remain in place through Feb. 15 as previously scheduled, officials said. At that time, the state will also increase the attendance thresholds for indoor and outdoor “mega events” — which are subject to additional recommendations and requirements surrounding coronavirus testing and vaccination verification — from 500 to 1,000, and 5,000 to 10,000, respectively.
In a sign of potentially more seismic moves to come, state officials also announced Monday they are working to update school masking requirements. Currently, everyone on a K-12 campus must wear masks indoors.
California isn’t alone in weighing such changes as much of the country emerges quickly from the latest COVID-19 wave. Just this week, officials in Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and Oregon also announced timelines for relaxing their own mask requirements.
The state also is lifting the requirement that visitors to hospitals and nursing homes test negative for the coronavirus.
While many are eager to return to pre-pandemic life, some public health officials and experts remain wary of removing all guardrails, aware that new coronavirus variants are possible in the months ahead. Hopes for a definitive end to the pandemic have been dashed many times, they say, and it would be unwise to drop both masking and vaccine requirements when such uncertainty remains.
Instead, some health officials and experts are urging smaller steps.
“This phase of the pandemic is nearing its end. I think that’s clear,” UC San Francisco epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford said at a campus meeting last week. “What variants emerge after that is really pretty much anyone’s guess. … There’s just no predicting them, unfortunately.”
Officials have long maintained that California’s COVID-19 response must evolve as conditions change.
But a recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that COVID-19 remains the top issue on voters’ minds. While 67% of those surveyed said they believe the worst of the pandemic is behind us, that’s down significantly from last May, when 86% of respondents expressed that sentiment.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has typically received high marks for his response to the pandemic, though that is largely split along party lines.
