‘Status quo’: Sacramento area sees some confusion as California waits to drop mask mandate
California health officials on Monday announced the state will not lift its mask mandate for vaccinated residents until June 15, more than four weeks after last Thursday’s updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saying it is safe for fully vaccinated people to forgo masks in most settings.
State Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said the delay is not due to California disagreeing with the new CDC recommendations, but rather an effort to give “time to prepare and think through the implementation” of them.
With the four-day gap between the new federal recommendations and the state’s announcement, officials in Sacramento County — where COVID-19 case rates have lingered higher and vaccination rates have been lower than California as a whole — are already noting that some local residents may be confused about the mask situation.
County health spokeswoman Janna Haynes said county officials have gotten reports of more patrons going into places of business without masks in the days since the CDC announced the relaxed mask guidelines. The county is warning people not to do that.
“It’s status quo here,” Haynes said Monday. “Our policy mirrors the state policy.”
Sacramento, along with neighbors Placer and Yuba, are among just 11 of the state’s 58 counties still in California’s “red” tier of COVID-19 risk, the second-tightest level, as of this week. The red tier denotes “substantial” spread of COVID-19 and keeps tighter restrictions and capacity limits on venues than in the looser orange and red tiers.
June 15 is the same date Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Department of Public Health have targeted for ending the tier framework, fully reopening the state economy.
“We encourage everyone to remain vigilant, to adhere to the California mask mandate, in anticipation that all of our businesses will be able to open up safely on June 15,” Haynes said. “The last thing we want to happen is a late-breaking surge of cases because people have decided they no longer need to be careful.”
Haynes pointed out that even after June 15, individual businesses will have the right to require customers wear masks, if they choose.
Perhaps adding to some of the confusion, though, several major U.S. retail chains have already lifted their mask requirements within days of the CDC’s announcement — except in stores located in states and jurisdictions where health orders continue to make them mandatory. Some California shoppers may not be aware of that caveat.
Target and CVS were among the latest to do lift their company-wide mandates, announcing the change Monday.
Ghaly also said Monday that individual counties may choose to continue with their own local mask mandates beyond mid-June.
Neither Sacramento County nor any of its five neighbors making up the capital region — El Dorado, Placer, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba — have their own local mask order currently in effect, all deferring to the state’s mandate.
Yolo, which imposed a mask mandate almost two months before California’s order last year, ended its local order this March to defer to the state. The Yuba-Sutter bicounty office ended its order earlier this month.
The state’s decision to wait until mid-June to change the mask mandate comes even as California boasts one of the lowest COVID-19 case rates in the U.S. CDPH on Monday reported the state’s test positivity rate for the virus at 0.9% over the preceding week, yet another new record low for the entire pandemic.
About 40% of all Californians are now fully vaccinated, including about half of the state’s adults, CDPH reported Monday. In the six-county capital region, all but Yolo County have a lower full vaccination rate than the statewide rate, CDPH data show. Yuba County’s rate is far below California’s rate, reported Monday by state health officials at just 22%.
This story was originally published May 17, 2021 at 1:43 PM.
