By Contra Costa Health Services
A new statewide masking order now requires everyone to wear masks in indoor public spaces regardless of their vaccination through Jan. 15, 2022. Since Contra Costa already has a local masking order in place, the new statewide masking mandate doesn’t affect us – and we will retain limited exceptions for certain indoor settings not open to the general public such as offices and gyms where everyone is vaccinated.
People in Contra Costa, regardless of vaccination status, will have to keep wearing face coverings in public settings as they have been doing since August.
While cases in Contra Costa have gone up since Thanksgiving, the county has one of the highest vaccination rates in California and hospitalizations are far below levels seen during the past summer and lower than in many other counties.
“The limited exceptions we made are for very low-risk scenarios where everyone is vaccinated,” said Health Officer Dr. Chris Farnitano. “Our community already understands and is following these rules and it would be confusing to change them for just one month.”
Contra Costa’s indoor-masking order will stay in place unless the county meets criteria for lifting the local mandate. The order is as follows:
The counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Sonoma and the City of Berkeley will lift the indoor masking requirement in public spaces not subject to state and federal masking rules when all the following occur:
- The jurisdiction reaches the moderate (yellow) COVID-19 transmission tier, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), and remains there for at least three weeks;
AND - COVID-19 hospitalizations in the jurisdiction are low and stable, in the judgment of the health officer
AND - 80% of the jurisdiction’s total population is fully vaccinated with two doses of Pfizer or Moderna or one dose of Johnson & Johnson (booster doses not considered) OR Eight weeks have passed since a COVID-19 vaccine has been authorized for emergency use by federal and state authorities for 5- to 11-year-olds
To see our progress for meeting those criteria, visit our Indoor Mask Mandate Dashboard.
Leave a Reply