Los Angeles County Health officials are open to more mask mandates in the future. The director, Barbara Ferrer, spoke about it. There has been a spike in cases over the last month from 264 per day to 571. There could be more since people take tests at home. No new measures have been taken yet but the door is open. Some workplaces and schools have spoken of the mandates again.
Mandates for control
Ferrer was asked about forcing masks again, ‘Ever’ is not a word I’m comfortable with. There’s not that level of certainty with this pandemic. I’m never going to say there’s not going to be a time when we all need to put our masks back on. I am going to say we certainly don’t all need to put our masks back on now. We are at a place where people make their own assessment.”
People were furious when Atlanta’s Morris Brown College reimposed mask mandates in August. Hollywood picked them up too. Lionsgate returned to masking and testing in its Los Angeles office.
Mandates were lifted
The Lionsgate mandate was lifted when “The announcement was made after Los Angeles County Department of Public Health informed the company that it could lift the mask requirement following days of no new infections.” New York officials are warming up to the mask again.
The New York City health commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan noted,
“As cases rise, precautions become increasingly important, especially for our most vulnerable New Yorkers who are older, disabled, or have underlying health conditions Staying up to date with Covid vaccines, along with other proven prevention tools — like masking, testing, and staying home when sick — continues to be our best defense against Covid and other respiratory viruses.”
Mandates are not what they seem
President Trump made it clear that we shouldn’t comply. He put a video on Truth Social,
“The left wing lunatics are trying very hard to bring back COVID lockdowns and mandates with all of their sudden fear-mongering about the new variants that are coming. You know what else is coming? An election. They want to restart the COVID hysteria so they can justify more lockdowns, more censorship, more illegal dropboxes, more mail in ballots and trillions of dollars in payoffs to their political allies heading into the 2024 election. Does that sound familiar? These are bad people. These are sick people we’re dealing with. To every COVID tyrant who wants to take away our freedom, hear these words: We will not comply, so don’t even think about it. We will not shut down our schools. We will not accept your lockdowns. We will not abide by your mask mandates, and we will not tolerate your vaccine mandates.”
Ferrer was asked if there was increased number of temporary mask mandates. She said no.
“No. It’s standard practice. When there’s an outbreak, our team goes in and makes an assessment. If it seems like there’s a lot of spread or potential for a lot of spread, masks are generally required…It’s a reasonable request. It usually lasts until we close the outbreak. In general 14 to 20 days out we stop seeing new cases associated with the index case and then lift the requirement that people wear masks. If you’re in a business that has multiple stories, we don’t tell everyone to wear a mask. If there’s a reasonable amount of spread we ask the people on the floor where there’s an outbreak to wear masks.”
