Los Angeles County is seeing a small rise in coronavirus cases. So, naturally, county health officials are panicking.
The county is reimposing its mask mandate this weekend, regardless of anyone’s vaccination status. It is seeing a seven-day average of just over 1,000 new cases per day in a population of nearly 10,000,000 people, yet this is enough to send county health officials into a frenzy. And it might not be the last time it happens.
“We expect to keep masking requirements in place until we begin to see improvements in our community transmission of COVID-19,” Los Angeles County Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis said Thursday. “But waiting for us to be at high community transmission level before making a change would be too late.”
This is a county where 62% of adults have been vaccinated. It’s also a county that saw Black Lives Matter protests and thousands of Los Angeles Lakers fans celebrating in the streets at points when its case average was higher than it is now. It saw a seven-day average of around 16,000 new cases at its peak in late December and early January.
For the record, this is the spike in Los Angeles coronavirus cases that led to them reinstating the indoor mask mandate pic.twitter.com/Z0BvMvUh9u
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) July 15, 2021
But this isn’t a surprise. Los Angeles County was always overly strict when it came to lockdowns. The county’s ban on outdoor dining during the pandemic was thrown out by the courts. It then banned restaurants from having televisions. Of course, these restrictions didn’t apply to everyone: Just hours after voting to ban outdoor dining as “a most dangerous situation,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl went to Santa Monica to eat at one of her favorite restaurants.
Los Angeles County is in conflict with state health officials on this question, and California is not exactly a state that took a more hands-off approach to the pandemic. The county is also in conflict with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which finally updated its guidelines two months ago to reflect the reality that vaccinated people do not need to wear masks.
Los Angeles is somehow being even more restrictive than California Gov. Gavin Newsom or President Joe Biden’s administration. Whether the minor uptick in cases is indicative of a new wave of cases or not is completely irrelevant: There is nothing to suggest that forcing fully vaccinated people to wear masks will help anything. This isn’t about safety; it’s about government officials who don’t want to let go of the “emergency” regulatory powers that the pandemic has granted them.
