According to officials, Los Angeles County could impose an indoor mask requirement due to rising coronavirus infections and hospitalizations.
Although the county’s website for public health is reporting a significant rise in test positivity and hospitalizations, there are still no deaths.
Barbara Ferrer, L.A. County Public Health Director, said that authorities would reimpose the indoor-mask mandate if hospitalizations – currently at 8.4 per 100,000 – reach 10 per 100,000 and remain there for two consecutive weeks.
According to The Los Angeles Daily News:
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the county currently has a “medium” level of virus activity. If the 7-day average number of COVID-related hospitalizations exceeds 10 per 100,000, it will be elevated to the “high” category.
The county’s current admission rate is 8.4 per 100,000 people as of Thursday. The county’s admission rate has increased by a lot over the past week and is expected to rise to 10 per 100,000 residents next Thursday, Barbara Ferrer, Public Health Director, stated in an online briefing. The estimate is only an estimation and could be altered dramatically depending on the admissions numbers over the next few days.
If the county maintains this high level for more than two weeks, it will reimpose a mandatory indoor mask-wearing requirement. According to the current schedule, this would occur on July 29.
The new rise in COVID-19 infections is being driven by new, highly contagious COVID-19 variants. State officials announced this week that they will not impose mask requirements on children attending public schools, possibly in fear of backlash in the run-up to November’s elections.
