California is relaxing COVID mask rules. What does that mean for Fresno and the Valley?
Fresno residents and people throughout most of California who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will no longer have to wear face masks in many indoor public settings after Feb. 15.
Those who remain unvaccinated, however, will be expected to continue wearing their masks to help hamper the spread of the coronavirus and its highly contagious omicron variant.
Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno County’s interim health officer, said Thursday that the county will follow the guidance issued this week by the California Department of Public Health in relaxing the rules put in place two months ago as the statewide rate of new coronavirus infections declines.
But there are unlikely to be any measures to enforce the expectation that those without shots will start or keep wearing face masks. Instead, Vohra said the county will continue to rely on people to comply with the masking rules of their own volition.
“Voluntary compliance is what people have come to expect,” Vohra told reporters Thursday, adding that his agency is unlikely to adopt any measures that are more stringent than the state’s guidance.
”Honestly, I don’t think we’re going to see a huge change in people’s habits,” Vohra added. “I think people have made up their minds about how they want to practice their daily activities.”
The change in rules comes as California has seen significant declines in the numbers of new COVID-19 infections statewide.
“Omicron has loosened its hold on California, vaccines for children under 5 are around the corner, and access to COVID-19 treatments is improving,” Dr. Tomás J. Aragón, the state’s Public Health Officer, said on Monday. “With things moving in the right direction, we are making responsible modifications to COVID-19 prevention measures, while also continuing to develop a longer-term action plan for the state.”
Local health officials, however, are encouraging people to continue wearing their masks indoors, regardless of their vaccination status.
But for the most part, it’s going to be an honor system with little means for businesses to determine who’s vaccinated and welcome without a mask, and who’s not vaccinated and required to wear a mask.
“Businesses are not required to monitor mask wearing except for sponsors of indoor ‘mega-events’ with more than 500 (people) until Feb. 15, changing to 1,000 or more on Feb. 16,” Dr. John Zweifler, public health physician with the Fresno County Department of Public Health, said earlier this week.
A person is considered “fully vaccinated” if they have received two doses of either the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or the Moderna vaccine, or a single dose of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson product. Subsequent booster doses of vaccine have been recommended for most people as well to bolster their immune systems as the effectiveness of the first shots wane.
In the days after the mask mandate for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people was put in place in mid-December, compliance was inconsistent in Fresno County and other parts of the central San Joaquin Valley, and has remained that way. A Fresno Bee online poll of readers in December reflected that while 63% said they wore their masks “all the time” when in indoor public places, another 25% said they either don’t wear masks at all or very seldom did so.
In addition to resistance by some Valley residents against masking rules, the proportion of the population that has been fully vaccinated in Fresno County and neighboring central San Joaquin Valley counties lags well behind the statewide average.
Through Tuesday, more than 68% of all California residents were fully vaccinated against COVID. Fresno County falls about 11 percentage points behind, at 58.2% — and only two other Valley counties have achieved vaccination rates over 50%.
More than one-third of Fresno County’s one-million-plus residents have not received any coronavirus shot at all.
The uncertaintly over who’s vaccinated and who’s not, and a reliance upon the unvaccinated to voluntarily comply with the masking requirement, is part of the rationale for the county’s recommendation for everyone to continue to wear a mask regardless of their vaccination status.
Fresno County’s health department “encourages everyone, whether fully vaccinated and boosted or not, to consider wearing a well-fitting mask (such as) KN95, N95 or surgical masks rather than a cloth mask in high-risk situations such as when indoors, in crowded settings and around others who are unmasked or unvaccinated,” Zweiffler said.
In some settings, such as health care facilities, congregate living and public transit, everyone — vaccinated or not — will still be required to wear face masks.
This story was originally published February 10, 2022 at 1:22 PM.
