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In this file photo, a pedestrian wearing a mask walks past a mural during the coronavirus outbreak in San Francisco.
Jeff Chiu/Associated PressLast month, Bay Area counties announced that were opting not to mandate masks indoors amid the current uptick of COVID-19 cases, citing low hospitalization numbers, as well as the fact that the highly vaccinated region is well-protected against severe illness and death.
On Thursday, Alameda County broke ranks by once again implementing an indoor mask mandate “to limit the impact of increasing COVID-19 cases on hospitalizations.” The mandate, which takes effect June 3, applies to most indoor settings, save K-12 schools and the city of Berkeley, which sets its own health protocols. The state lifted its school mask mandate earlier this year.
There is no end date for the Alameda County mandate.
Earlier this week, the New York Times published a piece titled “Why masks works but mandates haven’t” that questions the efficacy of broad community-level mandates.
“The evidence suggests that broad mask mandates have not done much to reduce COVID caseloads over the past two years,” author David Leonard writes. “Today, mask rules may do even less than in the past, given the contagiousness of current versions of the virus. And successful public health campaigns rarely involve a divisive fight over a measure unlikely to make a big difference.”
Analysis of county data from last summer’s delta-variant driven wave — the last California COVID-19 wave in which counties had different masking policies — suggests mask mandates had little impact on case rates if county vaccination rates were similar.
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