It is too soon to say whether Los Angeles County's latest indoor mask mandate will stop the current coronavirus surge, but there are signs of hope. While COVID-19 cases are still going up, they are rising more slowly.
“I do feel pretty confident that masking adds one of the most powerful additional layers of protection,” said the county’s public health director, Barbara Ferrer.
Cases are still rising but they're doing so more slowly. Over the past 7 days, cases have gone up 19%. The prior week, we saw a 52% jump.
Hospitalizations, a lagging indicator, have jumped 40% over the past seven days, compared to 52% the prior week.
“My hope is that we slow the spread and get back to a much slower rate by early September,” said Ferrer.
It has been more than two weeks since the county reinstated indoor masking for everyone, regardless of vaccination status, amid the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant. Since then, much of the Bay Area and other places around the country have followed suit.
A recent CDC document indicated Delta may cause more serious illness than other versions of the virus. The variant is also as contagious as chickenpox. Fully vaccinated people, while far less likely to get infected and well protected from serious illness if they do, may be able to spread the virus just as easily as an unvaccinated person.
“I don't think, for us, that we’ve changed our thinking on the Delta variant or our thinking on the protection,” said Ferrer.
She said it has been "clear" to county officials for a while that universal indoor masking is essential.