California Issues Statewide Indoor Mask Mandate Beginning This Week
This should’ve been done months ago, as masks are the only way to prevent transmission of the virus (the vaccines are effective at preventing severe illness and death, but NOT transmission). Better late than never, I guess:
Amid a new increase in COVID-19 cases, the state of California is reimposing a statewide mask mandate on indoor activities for one month, state officials announced Monday. The mandate will take effect from Dec. 15 to Jan. 15, 2022, according to Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the state Health & Human Services Agency.
Many counties across California, covering about 50% of the state’s population, already have such mask mandates in place, Ghaly noted. The state rule will cover those counties that do not. The new rules require the wearing of masks in all indoor public settings.
“Even a 10% increase in indoor masking can reduce case transmission significantly,” Ghaly noted.
Ghaly said the state has seen a 47% increase in COVID case rates across California since Thanksgiving, increasing from 9.6 cases per 100,000 Californians to now more than 14 per 100,000.
[ABC: State reinstates indoor mask mandate for one month amid new COVID-19 increase]
Of course, the problem now is that most people aren’t wearing the right masks, or they have them hanging under their chins, rendering them useless.
In case you didn’t know, these flimsy little blue masks (the ones that pretty much everyone wears) with the single loops around your ears do NOT work very well at all. Sorry.
Scarves and bandanas are also pretty much useless. The masks that work the best and offer the most protection are the N95 masks. They’re not too expensive, and I just bought myself a few more boxes of them here:
If the N95s are sold out, the KN95s are decent (thought not as good as N95), but in most cases, they inexplicably cost more than the N95s. The states and/or federal government should be giving free masks to everyone (something they could’ve been doing for the last two fucking years if they really cared about controlling the pandemic), but because they’re not, we’re on our own. More on the research and data behind the most effective masks here.
