All but two Bay Area counties bring back indoor mask mandate for everyone
Kill me now!
Bay Area residents will once again be required to wear masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status, county health officers announced Monday.
Health officers for seven of the nine counties in the region — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Sonoma — as well as the city of Berkeley brought back the restriction in an effort to stem the rapid spread of the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus.
The order goes into effect at midnight on Tuesday.
“Indoor masking is a temporary measure that will help us deal with the delta variant, which is causing a sharp increase in cases and we know increases in hospitalizations and deaths will follow,” Dr. Naveena Bobba, San Francisco’s acting health officer, said in a statement.
In issuing the new mandate, the health officers emphasized that vaccination remains the best weapon against spread of the virus, but that masks are a strong tool while many people still remain unvaccinated. Solano and Napa counties did not join their neighbors in the mask mandate.