【《We Chinese in America》Media Editor Tang Zhao, December 13, 2022】With coronavirus cases surging and hospitalizations worsening, Los Angeles County is again facing the possibility of a renewed public indoor mask mandate. (Photo credit: New York Times)

The return of such rules, which haven’t been on the books since March, is not a given. But with the startling formation of a third straight fall-and-winter wave, officials have said a new order could be implemented shortly after the new year should hospitalizations worsen.

“We are seeing a rapid acceleration again,” L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said. “This is the time to put that mask back on.”

Any new indoor mask mandate hinges on two metrics related to the pressure COVID-19 is exerting on hospitals in the nation’s most populous county.

One of the two triggers, which are based on criteria developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has already been met. The second could be weeks away, but it remains highly uncertain whether it will be reached.

A new mandate would be on the table should 10% of all staffed inpatient hospital beds in L.A. County be filled with coronavirus-positive patients. That has happened for a sustained period of time only twice in the pandemic — both during the last two deadly winter surges.

According to the most recent data, 6.9% of hospital beds in L.A. County are being used by coronavirus-positive patients, up from 2% at the start of November. Trends from the preceding two weeks suggested the figure could hit 10% around Dec. 19, Ferrer said Tuesday.

But several days of improving data since then are pushing that estimate back, Ferrer said Thursday, and it’s still possible L.A. County won’t reach that threshold at all.

L.A. County officially reassesses its data every Thursday, the same day the CDC issues its weekly report. So, for instance, should L.A. County be above that threshold on Dec. 22 — and remain so for two weeks — a mask mandate would be announced Jan. 5 and go into effect a day later. The mandate could be canceled if cases and hospitalizations stabilize or decrease. Or it could come sooner if conditions deteriorate faster than expected.

Ferrer said she is strongly recommending people put their masks back on now in indoor public settings. But she says a two-week waiting period before any potential order is issued is important to give businesses the time to educate their workforce and post appropriate signage. “In order for this to be an effective strategy that allows there to be as high compliance as we can get, you do need to give people time,” she said.

Ferrer said the mandate generally relies on voluntary compliance. Even at schools, she said, parents are eligible to get exemptions for their children “if there’s a health or safety issue that affects that child.”

(Source: Harvard Medical School)

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