LOS ANGELES (KNX) – On Friday, Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez introduced a motion that would put an end to the city requiring proof of vaccination for indoor establishment.
It was introduced the same day the county lifted indoor mask mandates for restaurants, grocery stores, and theaters for vaccinated and unvaccinated.
Dr. Timothy Brewer, a professor of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, told KNX In Depth, said letting people choose what do based on their comfort level is the right move.
“…and in part, that’s probably where we should have been a long time ago in recognizing that we’re all in this together and trying to help each other out rather than necessarily relying on mandates to do the right thing,” he said.
Dr. Brewer, however, claimed the county didn’t hit the “metrics” it said it needed to hit to pull back the requirements.
“So we’re supposed to have ‘moderate transmission’, that’s less than 730 cases per day for two weeks and we probably hit that somewhere around the beginning of March, March 2nd, 3rd, but we certainly haven’t hit that two week period,” he explained.
“ …These (mandates) are really difficult to enforce and it necessarily doesn’t make sense to have a rule that nobody can or will enforce. “
Dr. Brewer added it’s still important to listen to the scientists and health officials.
“I don’t think we ever want to ignore the science or ignore public health officials, but we do need to find that balance where kind of get on with our lives recognizing that SARS COVID-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is not gonna go away,” he said.
“That having been said, there are over 800 people right now in L.A. County hospitals with COVID-19. We’re still averaging about 10 deaths a day and about 620 new cases a day so this has not gone away. It’s still out there.”
Listen to Dr. Brewer’s full interview in the audio above.
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