The County of Los Angeles is re-instituting a mandate requiring residents to wear masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status, but LA County Sherriff Alex Villanueva said Friday his department will not enforce the mandate.
"I think it (the mandate) was hatched in darkness and it wasn't a collaborative effort, Villanueva told KNX. " It doesn't have science behind it, plain and simple."
In a tweet, Villanueva said his department has “limited resources” and would ask residents to voluntarily abide by the mandate, which goes into effect at 11:59 p.m. on Saturday.
The mandate was announced Thursday after the county saw an increase in new cases and seven consecutive days of 1,000 or more new COVID cases.
Health officials, as well as state, county and city elected officials have continuously urged residents to get vaccinated over the past month as vaccinations numbers have declined. The state has offered incentive programs, including tickets to theme parks and even cash.
Both county and city officials are even considering sending out mobile vaccination units to reach unvaccinated segments of the population.
Dr. Paul Offit from the University of Pennsylvania told KNX that governmental officials should get tougher on those who refuse to get vaccinated.
Offit, a member of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, said the decision whether to get vaccinated is not a personal one.
“This is not a freedom,” he said. “It is not your right to catch and transmit a potentially fatal infection.”
Offit said there is precedent to mandating vaccination.
“This has been to the Supreme Court twice, first in 1905 and the second time in 1922,” he said.
“In both cases, the health authorities were able to compel vaccinations. If you choose not to get a vaccination, then you pay some sort of societal price.”
“The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (DPH) has authority to enforce the order, but the underfunded/defunded Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department will not expend our limited resources and instead ask for voluntary compliance,” Villanueva wrote.
Villanueva said he would not allow deputies to get involved even if they were called to a large event where residents were breaking the mask mandate rules.
"If Public Health, with their enforcement capabilities, want to do it, they can knock themselves out," he told KNX. "I'm not going to have my deputies involved in any sort of conflict that's an artificially created one."