For months now Californians for the most part have not been required to wear face masks indoors or outdoors, giving everyone some sense of normalcy back. Now that more people are getting comfortable with getting back out there and socializing that means more people are gathering now that it’s the holiday season. While it has been a breath of fresh air for many, it has now been reported that since Thanksgiving there has been a rapid rise in COVID cases to the point where starting this Wednesday, 12/15, Californians will be required to wear a face mask indoors regardless of vaccination status. The order will affect roughly half the state’s population, including San Diego and Orange counties, the Inland Empire, the Central Valley, and rural Northern California.
NEW: CA orders statewide mask rule for indoor public spaces, amid COVID surge.
Order covers ~1/2 state’s population, including San Diego & Orange counties, Inland Empire, Central Valley & rural Northern CA.
LA County & most of Bay Area have mask rules.https://t.co/lbersTbYP9
— Margot Roosevelt (@margotroosevelt) December 13, 2021
Per the LA Times–
The move comes as coronavirus case rates in California have risen by almost 50% in the last 2½ weeks, and COVID-19 hospitalizations are up by nearly 15%. County health officials across the state say they suspect they may be seeing the start of a winter jump in coronavirus cases.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranks California as having a high level of transmission of the coronavirus, the worst tier in the federal agency’s four-tier scale.
“This is a critical time where we have a tool that we know has worked and can work,” Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s health and human services secretary, said Monday. “We are proactively putting this tool of universal indoor masking in public settings in place to ensure we get through a time of joy and hope — without a darker cloud of concern and despair.”
The statewide indoor mask mandate order will last a month, expiring on January 15. Both Universal Studios Hollywood (LA County) and Disneyland (Orange County) have already been requiring Guests to wear face masks indoors (despite masks not being required indoors in Orange County), so this will not be a new requirement for either of the theme parks.
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