CA Indoor Mask Mandate Ends: 5 Things To Know

CALIFORNIA — Mask on, mask off. The cycle of changing regulations surrounding California's overall approach to the pandemic is again evolving.

Gov. Gavin Newsom first ordered all Californians to wear face coverings on June 18, 2020, when coronavirus cases began to surge in the West Coast. Since then, mask mandates have been implemented — and changed — multiple times in response to rising and falling COVID-19 case rates.

"Our statewide indoor mask requirement will expire on 2/15," Newsom tweeted last week as the omicron surge continued to fade out. "Unvaccinated people will still need to wear masks indoors. Get vaccinated. Get boosted."

But the new rules are not black and white. Here's what we know about some of those gray areas.

1. Not every county will unmask.

The state may have given a green light for residents to unmask, but it will ultimately be up to the state's 58 counties to set masking rules.

In the Southland, the mask mandate will end in all counties except Los Angeles County.

In Northern California, Santa Clara County is the only Bay Area county that will hold on to its mask mandate.

"Being cautious still makes sense, and doing everything we can to drive down the high rates of transmission remains an appropriate goal for us to continue to embrace as a community," L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said, according to the Los Angeles Times.

According to Ferrer, the county's indoor mask rule will not be lifted until the county's virus transmission rate falls to the "moderate" level as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for two straight weeks, or until COVID-19 vaccines have been available to children under 5 years old for eight weeks.

The rate has been steadily dropping, and Ferrer said last week that at the current rate of decline, the county could reach the "moderate" category within a month.

2. Schoolchildren will still have to mask up.

California officials announced Monday that schoolchildren will have to continue masking, despite backlash from some parents and elected officials.

California Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. Mark Ghaly said the state will reassess state case rates, test positivity rate, hospitalizations, pediatric hospitalizations and vaccination rates to decide when the state will lift its mandate for schoolchildren. That reassessment is slated for Feb. 28.

"We anticipate making the change at that point," Ghaly said.

Ghaly earmarked several metrics that went into the state's decision to hold on to a masking requirement for schools, but he placed an emphasis on low vaccination rates for children under 11 years old.

About 27.8 percent of children under 11 years old in California have been fully vaccinated.

The state's top health official, who's also a father of four, said there wasn't any specific benchmark the state was looking to reach before lifting the masking requirement.

"We don't plan to, at this moment, set a threshold," Ghaly said. "We have a long way to go, and we have to work with families and communities to get that number up."

3. Schools are not the only places where masks will still be required indoors.

Vaccinated Californians are being allowed to shed their masks indoors except for in school and child care settings, jails and prisons, in health care settings and in long-term care settings.

"Masking requirements were never put in place to be there forever," Ghaly assured on Monday. "It’s not a question of if, it's a question of when."

4. Case rates and hospitalizations are continuing to fall in California.

Cases have dropped by more than 75 percent since mid-January, Ghaly said Monday.

The state's positivity rate was 6.2 percent on Monday, down from 8.8 percent one week ago, according to state data. The state's positivity rate was 22.9 percent on Jan. 14.

On Monday, there were 8,189 people hospitalized with COVID-19, compared with 10,412 on Feb. 8.

5. The state says it will eventually pivot to an "endemic" response.

The state will lift its mask mandate as part of its push to transition to an "endemic" phase in which Californians essentially learn to live with the virus in circulation.

Last week, Newsom said the new approach "allows for the kind of flexibility of thinking that is incumbent upon all of us as it relates to dealing with any endemic, particularly one as stubborn ... as COVID."

The endemic approach will ease masking and occupancy requirements and, instead, place an emphasis on vaccinations and booster shots.

"We're looking back at the last two years — what worked, what didn't, what we've all learned on the journey we've been on together," Newsom said, according to ABC7.

City News Service contributed to this report.

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