Los Angeles County will likely stop requiring people to mask up at most indoor settings on Friday, the county’s health director announced.
The county is currently categorized as having high COVID-19 risk by the CDC, but it’s expected to move to the low risk category on Thursday, L.A. County Health Director Barbara Ferrer told county supervisors Tuesday.
If that happens, the county will modify its health officer order to strongly recommend — but no longer require — masks for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people in most indoor places starting Friday, Ferrer announced.
“We are pretty clear that by this Thursday, when CDC updates their community levels table, we will have moved either to medium or low risk,” Ferrer said.
The change would align L.A. County with California state rules, which on Tuesday stopped mandating indoor masking for unvaccinated people.
Mirroring the state, L.A. County will still be requiring masks — regardless of vaccination status — for everyone on public transit, at emergency shelters, health care settings, correctional detention facilities, homeless shelters and long term care facilities.
Masks will still be required indoors at schools until March 11, when both the county and state plan to drop the requirement.
Ferrer also announced that COVID-19 vaccine verification at outdoor “mega” events like at Dodger Stadium or the Hollywood Bowl and indoor areas of bars, nightclubs and lounges will go from being required to just strongly recommended, Ferrer said.
Vaccination verification will, however, still be required at indoor mega events, and at health care and congregate care settings.
The change would come just a week after L.A. County modified its health officer order to allow businesses and venues verifying everyone’s vaccination status and checking COVID-19 test results to make masking optional for fully vaccinated people only.
The update expected Friday would relax masking rules even further.
L.A. County would also be dropping its mask mandate earlier than anticipated.
The county had originally planned on lifting the mandate when the county hits the “moderate” transmission level on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s old framework for seven consecutive days — a milestone the county was expected to hit in mid-March.
But last week, the CDC announced it is shifting to a new system that depends on both coronavirus case numbers and on hospital admissions, easing mask requirements for much of the country.
L.A. County brought back its indoor mask mandate in July 2021, because of an increase in coronavirus case numbers and concerns over the delta variant.
The mandate had remained in place since, spanning two different surges fueled by different variants, delta and omicron.
L.A. County in recent weeks has seen case numbers decline steadily after the latest winter surge sent infection numbers skyrocketing to record highs.
Still, many in the county remain unvaccinated and the region still contends with disparities in case rates tied to race and poverty levels.
Though the county is expected to soon loosen its requirements, Ferrer urged residents to voluntarily keep masking up indoors.
“Masks are one of the easiest things we can do to prevent COVID-19 transmission and provide strong protection to the person wearing as well as to the people around them,” she said.