angel The county will again require the wearing of masks indoors in the country’s largest county, even for people who have been vaccinated coronavirus, And the University of California system also stated on Thursday that students, faculty and staff must be vaccinated before they can return to campus.
The announcement comes at a time when virus cases have increased dramatically, many of which have been the result of a surge in the highly contagious Delta variant since California fully reopened its economy on June 15 and lifted capacity restrictions and social distancing. The vast majority of new cases have occurred in people who have not been vaccinated.
Dr. Muntu Davis, a public health officer for 10 million people in Los Angeles County, said that the rapid and continuous increase in cases in Los Angeles County requires the restoration of the regulations on wearing masks indoors. The public health order will take effect before midnight on Saturday.
“This is a moment of full participation,” Davis said at a virtual press conference.
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He did not elaborate on some exceptions to the mask rule, but said, for example, people can still take off their masks while eating and drinking in restaurants.
Davis said officials will focus on education rather than law enforcement. He said that issuing subpoenas to people who did not comply with the rules “is not what we really want to do.”
Davis said that Los Angeles County has recorded more than 1,000 new cases every day for a week, and there is now “a large number of community transmission.” On Thursday, there were 1,537 new cases, and the number of hospitalizations has now exceeded 400.
“The next level is high communication, which is not where we want,” he said.
One winter later, the number of infections and deaths in Los Angeles County surged, the hospital was crowded with COVID-19 patients, and the ambulances were idle outside waiting for the beds to open.
The number of hospitalizations in California now exceeds 1,700, the highest level since April. More than 3,600 cases were reported on Thursday, the highest level since late February, but a far cry from the winter peak of over 40,000 cases per day.
Other counties, including Sacramento and Yolo, strongly urge people to wear masks indoors, but it is not mandatory.
“The sharp increase in cases is worrying-the number of people who choose not to get vaccinated is also worrying,” said Sacramento County Public Health Officer Olivia Kasirye.
The Los Angeles County decision was made within a few hours after the University of California announced that students, faculty and staff must be vaccinated in the upcoming semester.
The president of the University of California, Michael V. Drake, said in a letter to the 10 principals of the system that students who are not vaccinated without an approved exemption will be barred from attending face-to-face classes, activities and campus facilities, including housing.
Drake wrote: “Vaccination is by far the most effective way to prevent serious illness and death after exposure to the virus, and to reduce the spread of disease to those who cannot or are not eligible for vaccination.”
He said that this decision was made after consulting with infectious disease experts at the University of California and reviewing evidence from research on the risks of emerging variants such as COVID-19 and delta strains.
In San Francisco, unvaccinated cases are on the rise. Blacks and Latinos have lower rates of vaccinations than others, and the Mayor of London Brid urged them to get vaccinated.
She said on Thursday that everyone who was hospitalized with COVID-19 at San Francisco General Hospital had not been vaccinated, and most of them were African Americans.
San Francisco director Sharman Walton said that the area with the largest number of cases is the Bay Area, a mainly black community, “because we did not do everything to protect each other. This is a cry for my community. …we You need to be vaccinated.”
San Francisco has one of the highest overall vaccination rates among the most populous states in the United States. At least 83% of residents 12 years and older received at least one dose.
Meanwhile, in northern San Francisco, at least 59 residents of a homeless shelter tested positive for the virus. Sonoma County Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase said on Wednesday that 28 of those infected at the Santa Rosa Refuge have been vaccinated. Officials are reviewing another 26 possible positive cases.
Health officials said that of the people diagnosed with the infection in Samuel L. Jones Hall, 9 were hospitalized, and 6 of them were fully vaccinated and had “many major” underlying health conditions, including diabetes and lung disease.
Officials said that less than half of the 153 residents of the shelter were vaccinated at least partially, and they did not know whether the outbreak started with vaccinated or unvaccinated residents.
“We know that the risk of the gathering environment is much higher,” Metz said. “We also know that the proportion of people who have not been vaccinated in this case is very high.”
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Most of the 69 vaccinated residents received a single injection from Johnson & Johnson, but Mase said it was difficult to determine whether this was a factor in the outbreak.
Vaccines can reduce the severity of the disease, reduce hospitalization and reduce the risk of death. Clinical trials have shown that in the United States, a single dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccine is 72% effective against moderate to severe COVID-19, while Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are 95% effective.
An analysis by the Food and Drug Administration warned that it is not yet clear how effective the vaccine will be for each variant.
The occurrence of so-called breakthrough cases in a fully vaccinated population is unusual. Between January 1 and June 30, California identified 8,699 such cases among more than 20 million vaccinated people.
Associated Press writers Olga R. Rodriguez and San Francisco’s Jocelyn Gecker contributed to this report.
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