Several California counties have begun recommending mask-wearing indoors, amid a fourfold increase in some areas.
Health officials in three Bay Area counties are urging residents to wear well-fitting masks, such as N-95 or K-95 masks, in indoor public spaces like restaurants and grocery stores.
The Contra Costa County health department outside San Francisco said the recommendation comes as cases quadrupled from May 9 to July 9.
But rates have since stagnated, according to wastewater data, and hospitalizations and deaths have remained at historic lows.
The number of positive Covid tests in California rose by one percent in the past week. In some areas, cases quadrupled from earlier in the summer.
Contra Costa, Marin and San Francisco counties have recommended wearing masks in public places, such as grocery stores and restaurants. However, this is only a recommendation and not an obligation.
The guidance comes weeks after Violet Affleck, the 18-year-old daughter of actors Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, urged Los Angeles County officials to reinstate mask mandates and end all “mask bans.”
And this follows Dr. Anthony Fauci’s recent admission that strict measures early in the pandemic, such as closing schools and businesses, may have been too harsh and had “potential negative side effects.”
Nearby San Francisco and Marin counties have also recommended wearing masks in public areas amid a steady rise in cases.
Contra Costa County Health Officer Dr. Ori Tzvieli said, “Face masks are an effective tool to reduce the spread of the virus, particularly for those at risk for severe illness when there is evidence of elevated COVID-19 activity in the community.”
“This is one of those times. Our health system is not severely affected by COVID at the moment and our goal is to keep it that way.”
Most health agencies in the Bay Area lifted their mask mandates in February 2022.
The new recommendation is not mandatory and depends on personal preferences.
The evidence on whether masks actually prevented infections during the Covid pandemic is mixed.
A gold-standard analysis of 78 studies and 1 million people in 2023 found that face coverings made “little or no difference” to Covid infection or death rates.
Deaths and hospitalizations in California continue to decline, according to wastewater data
Meanwhile, in the United States as a whole, Covid cases have continued to decline since November 2023.
Contra Costa County only requires healthcare workers to wear masks seasonally, from November 1 to April 30, to reduce the spread of Covid, influenza, and RSV.
As of July 29, the latest data available, 13 percent of the nearly 9,000 tests conducted in the area had returned positive results, an increase of 1 percent from the previous week.
Contra Costa County Deputy Health Director Dr. Sofe’ Mekuria told the local news station Crown 4 that the area is seeing mainly cases of the ‘FLiRT’ strain, a variation of Omicron responsible for the majority of infections throughout the United States.
Meanwhile, deaths in California have been nearing historic lows, with just four deaths reported the week of July 29, half as many as this time last year.
Nationwide, 304 Covid deaths were reported to the CDC during the same week, a 46 percent drop from this time last year. In early 2021, during the peak of the pandemic, more than 26,000 deaths were reported to the CDC.
Dr. Mekuria noted that while hospitalizations and deaths have remained stable, vaccination rates in the area are declining.
“We expect that a new COVID-19 vaccine with new COVID-19 strains should be available this summer or early fall. Possibly as early as September,” he said.
The recommendations come after recent research suggested that masks may not be as effective as they were early in the pandemic.
Researchers at the University of East Anglia, for example, found in a May study that the protective effect of masks appeared to disappear in February 2022, around the same time California lifted its mandates.
The team believed this was because the Omicron variant, which later mutated into FLiRT, was too infectious for masks to prevent.
Contra Costa residents told KRON4 that despite recommendations, few people were wearing masks.
“I do sometimes see people wearing masks. They’re very few and far between. They’re usually older people,” said resident Connie Koplan.