San Francisco gets special permissions as indoor mask mandate starts in California

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- The statewide indoor mask mandate has resumed Wednesday in California.

The indoor mask mandate, which requires everyone regardless of vaccination status to wear a face mask while inside public spaces, appears to be temporary. The state's health order set an expiration date of Jan. 15, 2022.

San Francisco and other counties which already had indoor masking requirements were granted special permissions from the state however to keep the local health orders in place.

This means that stable cohorts of 100% fully vaccinated people in select settings, like workspaces and gyms, will continue to be allowed to remove masks when the necessary safety measures have been met, the state said.

The California Department of Health reissued the mandate as the state has seen an increasing trend in COVID-19 cases since Thanksgiving and with the rise of the omicron variant, which is still being researched.

At this time, health officials don't know if it causes more severe illness than other COVID-19 strains, but it appears to be spreading more easily than the original coronavirus strain, the CDC said.

Aside from the omicron variant, the state said the mandate provides protection for people as indoor holiday gatherings and travel ramp up.

Here are the exemptions to the mask mandate, according to the order:

• Persons younger than two years old. Very young children must not wear a mask because of the risk of suffocation.
• Persons with a medical condition, mental health condition, or disability that prevents wearing a mask. This includes persons with a medical condition for whom wearing a mask could obstruct breathing or who are unconscious, incapacitated, or otherwise unable to remove a mask without assistance.
• Persons who are hearing impaired, or communicating with a person who is hearing impaired, where the ability to see the mouth is essential for communication.
• Persons for whom wearing a mask would create a risk to the person related to their work, as determined by local, state, or federal regulators or workplace safety guidelines.

Even though the mask mandate applies to even vaccinated people, the health officials are still encouraging people to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Unvaccinated people were 7.1 times more likely to get COVID-19, according to the California health department data from Nov. 21-27, 2021.

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