Two and a half years after the pandemic began in the United States, COVID has receded from the minds of most people. Unfortunately, none of those people are decision-makers in Los Angeles County, which is backsliding into mask mandates once again.
The county is on track to enter the “high” level of COVID transmission, which would lead to a return to indoor mask mandates in two weeks. The county still requires masks on public transportation, but now, nearly 10 million residents are staring down a return to masking in all indoor buildings and facilities (unless, of course, they are celebrities or Democratic politicians).
“I do recognize that when we return to universal indoor masking to reduce high spread, for many, this will feel like a step backwards,” Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said of the obvious step backward. But forcing everyone to wear masks inside “makes a lot of sense because it helps us to reduce risk.”
Los Angeles County is approaching a 15% test positivity rate, which appears to be the trigger for the mandate. That rate is close to the 23% rate from January earlier this year, the last time the county saw a COVID spike. But the daily case average now (about 5,000) is just a fraction of what it was then (over 41,000). More importantly, the average number of hospitalizations now (822) is nowhere near what it was at the start of the year during the last surge (4,109).
The number of deaths similarly shows how embarrassing it would be for the county to return to mask mandates. The daily average of COVID deaths in Los Angeles County now is 13. During that aforementioned surge in cases at the beginning of the year, the average peaked at 73, thanks to vaccinations, natural immunity, and COVID treatments.
Most importantly, there is no evidence that mask mandates do much of anything to reduce the spread of COVID. As David Leonhardt wrote for the New York Times earlier this summer, unlike the clear evidence that areas with higher vaccination rates had fewer COVID deaths, “when you look at the data on mask-wearing — both before vaccines were available and after, as well as both in the U.S. and abroad — you struggle to see any patterns.”
Los Angeles County’s safetyism has defied all reason, to the point that the county had banned restaurants from having televisions and even banned outdoor dining. That mandates are even on the table now, 28 months after the start of the pandemic and 15 months since vaccines became available to everyone in California, is absurd. Los Angeles health officials can live in fear of their own shadows, but the county’s 10 million residents should not be governed by that fear.
