LA County moves to "high" COVID-19 activity level; indoor mask mandate could return on July 29
Los Angeles County officially moved into the "high" COVID-19 activity level Thursday, beginning a two-week clock for implementation of an indoor mask mandate.
Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer confirmed the move Thursday afternoon.
The mandate will be imposed if the county remains in the "high" category for two straight weeks, meaning it would occur on July 29.
The majority of COVID cases right now in L.A. County are the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants.
That's of particular concern because those subvariants are especially good at evading immunity from recent infection.
The county has seen an 88% increase in hospitalizations over the last month.
"As of today, we have moved from the medium to "high" COVID community level," Ferrer said.
Ferrer said that the county's positivity rate is now around 16%, with roughly 6,400 new cases and 157 hospital admissions each day.
"While we are not seeing anywhere near the devastation we saw last winter's omicron surge, we are seeing much higher case numbers than we saw at the peak of the delta surge. It's unlikely we are at the peak of this surge," she said.
Workplace and nursing home outbreaks are fueling the current surge. COVID is currently the leading cause of death in L.A. County- surpassing deaths by drug overdose or car accidents.
"We have already seen more deaths from COVID these past 6 months than we have seen annually from any other infectious diseases," Ferrer said.
If our rates don't fall significantly, the indoor mask mandate will go into effect in two weeks. It will impact all indoor spaces, including shared office spaces, retail stores, restaurants, when not eating or drinking and sporting events for anyone over two years old.
"For many, this will feel like a step backward, for others indoor masking will feel unnecessary due to the availability of vaccines and other therapeutics, but the reality is we are living with a mutating virus, there remains uncertainty around the trajectory of this pandemic," Ferrer said.
The mask mandate will expire two weeks after we drop to the medium threshold.