San Francisco and Marin relax the rules for indoor masks. Do other people do? – Marine Independent Journal

Most Bay Area counties remain far from reaching their own standards for removing mask requirements, but starting Friday, in some indoor environments in San Francisco and Marin County, vaccinated people will face No need to cover.

When Contra Costa County will join them on November 1st.. Partial lifts at these locations include gyms, fitness centers, office settings, employee commuter vehicles, religious gatherings, and up to 100 people who have all been proven to be vaccinated. Applies to college classes. This means that no child under the age of 12 is still unable to take a shot. In indoor locations with young children, everyone should wear a mask.

“This allows vaccinated people to feel safe to remove their masks while exercising in the office or gym,” said Dr. Chris Farnitano, Contra Costa County Health Officer, Thursday. Told to. “Of course, people in these places can continue to wear masks if it makes them feel more comfortable.”

The limited relaxation of the mask rules was a welcome change for Glenn Shope, owner of MX3 Fitness in San Francisco.

“It’s definitely beneficial because it’s much easier to do high-intensity work without a mask,” says Shope. “The gym owner and trainer are always responsible for implementing the mask protocol, encouraging people to put the mask on their nose and mouth and put it back on after drinking and hydrating. Also, return to the gym. Let the members know that it’s safe. “

Limited mask rule changes are made even if most Bay Area counties are not hit. The threshold they set last week To allow vaccinated people to lose their masks more widely when not eating or drinking in most indoor public places such as grocery stores, retail stores, restaurants and bars.

Under these criteria, agreed by eight of the nine county health officials, indoor mask requirements for vaccination could decline three weeks after the county’s COVID-19 infection rate reached the United States. I have. Centers for Disease Control and PreventionYellow “medium” layer. At least 80% of the county’s total population must be fully vaccinated and hospitalization rates should be low and stable.

Of the nine counties in the Bay Area, only Marin appears to be approaching these criteria. It reached a medium transmission rate of the CDC on Wednesday, and if it stayed there, put it on the road to drop the full indoor mask rules next month. According to the CDC, hospitalization rates are low, with 77.4% of the county’s population fully vaccinated, with the highest proportion of the Bay Area.

Most other Bay Area counties are in the orange “substantial” transmission layer of the CDC, and Napa’s rate remains at the red “high” level. Solano County did not join the other counties by imposing its own indoor mask requirements in August.

San Francisco first announced the partial removal of the mask requirement on Friday. Asked why Santa Clara County wasn’t planning a similar exception, health doctor Dr. Sarah Cody said: San Francisco has vaccine passport requirements You can enter restaurants, bars, gyms, clubs, large indoor events, or other indoor locations that serve food and drink, but not Santa Clara County.

“Here in Santa Clara County, we’ve always tried to make the rules as simple as possible and easy for the general public to understand,” Cody said last week.

However, Marin County and Contra Costa County do not have the same vaccine passport rules as San Francisco. However, county officials in Santa Clara, Alameda, San Mateo and Sonoma said Thursday that they had no plans to allow exceptions to mask rules like San Francisco, Marin and Contra Costa. Napa County officials did not respond.

Sonoma County spokesman Matt Brown said, “Our case rates and hospitalization rates are too high, vaccination rates are too low to lift Maskman Date, and we are heading for a potentially bad winter season.” It states.

The exception to indoor masks allowed on Friday does not apply to places such as restaurants and bars, except while patrons are eating and drinking. In San Francisco, vaccination is required for admission.After she was Last month, he was criticized for dancing without a mask San Francisco Mayor London Breed counterattacked at a city bar with no intention of putting the mask back on immediately after taking a sip to satisfy the “fun police.”

Since August, when the summer wave of infection with highly contagious delta variants culminated, vaccination boosts immunity or recovery from COVID-19 and mask rules.

Still, the virus remains active. Most US states remain at high transmission levels for the CDC, with only California, Florida, Alabama, Hawaii, and Connecticut reaching moderate speeds.