On the heels of California announcing on Monday that it will lift its statewide mask requirement for vaccinated individuals later this month, Sacramento County confirmed that it is following suit.
“We are planning to follow the state’s lead on lifting the mask mandate,” a spokesperson with Sacramento County wrote in a response to KCRA 3.
Monday’s announcement will allow for vaccinated people to not have to wear masks indoors in most settings after Feb. 15. Unvaccinated people still will be required to be masked indoors, and everyone — vaccinated or not — will have to wear masks in higher-risk areas like public transit and nursing homes and other congregate living facilities, officials said.
California has seen a 65% drop in case rates since the peak during the wintertime omicron surge. The state’s 7-day average COVID-19 case rate stands at 103.7 cases per 100,000, according to a its dashboard.
Local governments will be allowed to keep their own self-imposed mask mandates. Last week, Los Angeles County said it is keeping its mandate beyond the state deadline.
As of last Thursday, the 7-day average COVID-19 case rate in Sacramento County was 63.8 people per 100,000. That’s down from a peak of 245 per 100,000 on Jan. 10.
Sacramento County had said it would end its indoor mask mandate when the county reached a rate of 5 cases per 100,000 people.
“That was when we were in the midst of the delta surge,” Sacramento County Public Information Officer Janna Haynes told KCRA 3. “We are making changes just like everyone else is as we get new information and we feel like our cases are definitely headed stepped in the right direction, and that’s why we changed our course as far as the mask mandate.”
The test positivity rate last week was more than 52%, according to the county.
Dr. Vanessa Walker, a pulmonary and critical care physician with Pulmonary Medicine Associates, said she is not surprised the county is following the state’s lead.
“I think we have so many people who are already infected or vaccinated that our case rates are just going to continue to drop and mandating masks is probably not needed anymore,” Walker explained.
She and county health officials say a majority of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in Sacramento are unvaccinated and stress the importance of getting both doses of the vaccine as well as the booster dose.
Read More Here | California will lift mask mandate as omicron cases fall
Local governments will be allowed to keep their own self-imposed mask mandates.
A Yolo County spokesperson told KCRA 3 on Monday that it would “evaluate our local situation and plan to announces a decision before Feb. 15.”
Last week, Los Angeles County said it is keeping its mandate beyond the state deadline.
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The Associated Press contributed to this reporting.
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