The Bay Area's largest county is officially lifting its public indoor mask mandate Wednesday.
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Santa Clara County public health officials confirmed on Tuesday that masks will no longer be required in public indoor spaces after reaching the criteria officials established last month. The county was the Bay Area's lone holdout when the state, and the rest of the region, lifted its COVID-19 mask mandate two weeks ago.
County officials, however, still recommend that all county residents continue to wear masks indoors in public.
"We are very encouraged by the progress we have made," Dr. Sara Cody, Health Officer and Director of Public Health for Santa Clara County, said in a statement on Tuesday. "We have much less COVID spreading in our community as compared to two weeks ago or even a week ago. While indoor masking in public spaces will no longer be required, it still makes sense to do. Wearing a mask is part of working together to protect others, especially the most vulnerable among us."
Santa Clara County's seven-day rolling average of new cases has fallen below 550 per day since Feb. 24. That decline, plus county hospitalizations stabilizing at a low rate and 80% of all county residents being fully vaccinated against COVID-19, enabled Santa Clara County to follow the rest of the Bay Area and the state.
County officials said in a release on Tuesday that Santa Clara County will, like the rest of the state, no longer require masks in schools or childcare settings beginning on March 12. Santa Clara County "strongly recommends individuals" people continue to wear masks in both places.
"It still makes sense to prevent infections however we can," Cody said in a press conference on Tuesday. "We know that masks work."
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