In the wake of Marin County becoming the first in the Bay Area to lift its public indoor mask mandate, San Francisco officials are hopeful the city will soon be able to follow suit.
The San Francisco Department of Public Health told KCBS Radio in a statement on Monday that the city is nearing the necessary criteria to no longer require masks in public indoor spaces, as San Francisco and eight other Bay Area counties and cities agreed to last month.
San Francisco had previously eased its requirement in gyms and religious gatherings, among other indoor settings, on Oct. 15.
In order to lift the vast majority of public masking requirements introduced in August amid the spread of the COVID-19 delta variant, a jurisdiction needs to have low and stable hospitalizations as defined by its health officer, 21 straight days of a "moderate" rate of COVID-19 transmission based on federal standards and 80% of its population fully vaccinated.
Marin County announced on Friday it had hit all of the criteria, officially lifting its mandate at noon on Monday.
San Francisco had 48 people hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Monday, and the public health department said that was 17 fewer than what Dr. Grant Colfax, Director of Public Health, considers to be low and stable.
Monday marked San Francisco's 11th consecutive day with what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers moderate transmission, the department said. On each of those days, San Francisco has averaged between 10 and 50 new cases of COVID-19 for every 100,000 residents during the preceding week.
San Francisco had fully vaccinated 76% of its residents as of Monday, according to the department.
"We believe that the approximately 44,000 San Francisco children ages 5-11 who will become eligible for vaccinations will help the city reach the 80% vaccination rate," the department said in an emailed statement to KCBS Radio.
According to U.S. Census data, San Francisco has 873,965 residents. Using that as a baseline, fully vaccinating the city's aforementioned 44,000 children – and nobody else who's already eligible – would get the city to an 81% full vaccination rate.
That same percentage of residents has already received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to San Francisco data.
The CDC is expected to approve the two-dose Pfizer vaccine for children aged 5-11 by the end of this week. Under the Food and Drug Administration's emergency use authorization, children can receive their doses at least three weeks apart, meaning some could be fully vaccinated within five weeks of doses being administered.
If San Francisco doesn't fully vaccinate 80% of its residents, it can still lift its mask mandate if it meets the other two criteria eight weeks after federal and state officials allow vaccinations for children who are at least 5 years old. Dec. 31 is eight weeks from Friday.
Perhaps owing to that timeline, an official from Contra Costa County told KCBS Radio over the weekend the county anticipates being able to lift its mask requirement in January. Contra Costa County currently has a substantial rate of COVID-19 transmission, according to the CDC, and just shy of 72% of its residents are fully vaccinated.
Related
