If local COVID-19 transmission and hospitalization rates continue to decline, Marin County health officials stated Friday that the county will join San Francisco in removing the indoor mask mandate in select settings next week.
Fully vaccinated people are allowed to remove their masks indoors such as gyms and offices starting Oct. 15. The people will only be allowed to remove masks if the following conditions are fulfilled. According to the county’s public health department, the area is not fulfilled with more than 100 people, everyone is vaccinated, the host keeps track of who is present, and entry and exit activity is controlled and not open to the general public.
Employee commuter vehicles, college classrooms, and religious settings would be included in the adjustment to the county’s indoor mask rule, which currently applies to all people, regardless of vaccination status, in more congested venues like grocery stores.
“We’re not in the position to release all the requirements entirely, but we’re in a strong position to relax some limits in the safest environments.” Dr. Matt Willis, the county’s public health officer, told in a statement.
If the number of cases and hospitalizations remain stable, San Francisco will make a similar tweak to its mask rule on Oct. 15. Marin and seven other counties including Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Contra Costa, San Francisco, Sonoma, and Napa — announced three requirements on Thursday for when mask regulations can be completely withdrawn.
First, a county must reach the CDC’s data tracker’s “moderate” (yellow) rung of case rates and stay there for three weeks. The current tier for San Francisco is “considerable.” Second, the health officer of the county must determine that COVID-19 hospitalizations are “low and stable.”
Finally, either 80 percent of a county’s total population must be properly vaccinated against COVID-19 or eight weeks must have passed after a COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 5 to 11 was approved. San Francisco’s populace has been fully immunised since Thursday.
The new limits for gatherings of individuals who meet on a regular basis were only implemented in San Francisco and Marin counties.
