California: With COVID back on the rise, some cities, agencies mulling a return of health mandates

With COVID back on the rise, some cities, agencies mulling a return of health mandates San Jose reinstated indoor mask requirement for all its employees ‘out of an abundance of caution’ through at least May 20 Grace Hase The Mercury News

As the Bay Area braces for yet another COVID-19 surge, a few cities and agencies are reinstating indoor mask mandates as the region continues debating the worth of a patchwork of coronavirus-related health orders.

Since late March, California’s case rate has nearly tripled and the Bay Area — which historically experienced a lower case rate than the rest of the state — has emerged as a COVID hotspot.

Though cases are still one-tenth of what they were during January’s omicron surge, the region has more than three times as many positive cases than it did six weeks after the winter surge. That trend started in San Francisco around mid-March, followed by Santa Clara, San Mateo and a little later the other counties.

The uptick, driven by the emergence of two omicron subvariants that according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now account for most of the cases nationally, have prompted some cities such as San Jose to revisit lifted mandates. Others continue to wait and see, reluctant to change the rules again for a public tiring of mixed messages.

San Jose reinstated an indoor mask mandate Friday for city employees.

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