In a marked shift on the necessity of using face masks or coverings to avoid spreading the deadly coronavirus, several Bay Area health officers — with some exceptions — ordered adults and teens to wear them in public.
The new orders mean more than 5 million Bay Area residents could soon face a criminal charge as a “menace to public health” that is “punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both” for refusing to wear cloth face coverings in public settings.
San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa and Marin counties issued orders Friday mandating face masks in public for those over age 12 starting at noon Wednesday. San Mateo County also was expected to issue a similar order.
“This does not change the current shelter-in-place order, which is in place at least until May 3,” said Dr. Matt Willis, Marin County Public Health Officer. “But we need to make sure we can interact more safely in public before we consider any changes to the shelter-in-place order.”
The move comes after Sonoma County on Monday announced a similar order, which took effect Friday; the city of Fremont said Thursday that it too would require customers and employees in essential business to cover their faces. Los Angeles County, with a population of 10 million and more than 10,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, instituted a mandatory-mask order Wednesday night, and Riverside County also has issued a mask mandate.
But unlike the Bay Area health officers’ joint shelter-in-place order, the mask mandates came piecemeal. In Santa Clara County, the most populous in the Bay Area, health officials said Friday evening that they “strongly urged” residents to wear face coverings in public but stopped short of issuing a mandate, citing the potential strain it could put on local law enforcement tasked with making sure people followed the requirement.
“Jurisdictions around the Bay Area are unified in the recognition that face coverings are a very important tool in breaking the chains of transmission,” the county said in a statement. “Some jurisdictions may use a legal Health Officer Order while others may use guidance or recommendations to achieve the same goals.”
The statement added that the county health department anticipated “significant voluntary compliance with this recommendation.”
Santa Cruz County, which joined Bay Area counties on shelter in place March 16, also continued to recommend — but not demand — that people wear face coverings while conducting essential business.
Since the outbreak spread to the U.S. in January, federal, state and local officials have given mixed signals on the need and benefit of wearing face masks, arguing early on that loose-fitting surgical masks, home-made coverings and makeshift cloth filters such as bandannas offered little benefit in protecting the wearer from the virus.
While acknowledging that such coverings could reduce chances of an infected person spreading the coronavirus to others, public health officials largely agreed that only properly worn and fitted N95 respirators could protect the wearer. Those masks are designed for hospitals, construction sites and other occupational safety situations — but they are intended to be disposable, and due to global supply shortages, health officials have urged the public to reserve N95 respirators for medical workers.
The shifting guidance follows mounting evidence that the novel coronavirus can be spread by people who don’t know they are infected because they don’t feel sick.
“We now know that a significant number of people with COVID-19 lack symptoms or become infectious before they start showing symptoms,” said Dr. Chris Farnitano, Contra Costa County’s health officer. “That is why we all need to start wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where it’s sometimes hard to maintain physical distancing, such as standing in line at the store.”
Nationally, President Donald Trump has noted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation that people wear a simple cloth face covering in public but has stressed that it’s a recommendation and said, “I just don’t want to wear one myself.” The CDC now offers tips on how to make your own cloth face covering, while stressing that N95 respirators be saved for health care personnel.
At the state level, New York, New Jersey and Maryland have all mandated masks in public settings. In California, the Department of Public Health has not gone quite as far but issued guidance April 1 stating that there may be a “benefit to reducing asymptomatic transmission and reinforcing physical distancing from the use of face coverings.”
And though Gov. Gavin Newsom has encouraged residents to wear face coverings, he has resisted a statewide requirement and does not personally wear a mask in public appearances. Asked Friday if California would issue a blanket requirement for people to wear face coverings, he said state officials were “leaning in that direction” but added that masks are still “not a substitute to physical distancing.”
Alameda County and San Francisco said their orders would be in effect starting at midnight Friday but would not be enforced until Wednesday to give people time to acquire or make masks. Orders in Contra Costa and Marin counties simply say that the new requirements take effect Wednesday.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed also advised people not to take on the job of enforcement.
“If you are not a police officer, don’t act like one,” Breed said. “What we don’t want is more confrontation, more stress and more drama in general as a result of this order.”
The orders require people to wear masks inside public spaces — or while waiting in line to enter public spaces — including while seeking health care, waiting for or riding on shared transportation and in common areas of buildings, such as hallways, stairways, elevators and parking facilities. They also apply to transit drivers or operators, as well as workers at businesses that remain open and in areas where the public is present or where food is being prepared or packaged.
The orders do not apply to people in their own cars alone or with members of their own household. And they don’t generally require people wear face coverings for outdoor recreation such as walking, hiking, bicycling or running, though they recommend they have one with them and maintain social distancing.
The masks are required for anyone over age 12 but are not recommended for children age 2 or younger, due to suffocation risk. None of the local orders requires medical-grade masks, only a face covering of some variety, like a bandanna or homemade mask.
San Mateo resident Sandra Jamme was hopeful Friday that the mask requirement might be a step toward lifting the county and state shelter-in-place orders, allowing more people to return to work and restart the local economy.
“Wearing a mask is something we can all do without too much interference with our daily activity,” Jamme said, though she questioned whether homemade masks are really sufficient and wondered how long people will be required to wear them.
Greg Tuss also questioned how much protection masks offer and whether everyone really needs to be wearing one. The fact that public officials said just a few weeks ago that masks were unnecessary has left him wondering why “all of a sudden there was this massive sea change.”
“It makes me think nobody knows what they’re doing,” Tuss said. “They’re just shooting from the hip as they go along.”
But not everyone saw the new mandate as burdensome. Grant Conour, a teacher in Menlo Park, lived in Japan for a couple of years, where mask wearing is much more common. “I got used to it quickly, so maybe that’s one reason it hasn’t felt quite so strange for me,” he said.
Jeannie Ainsworth, who made a San Francisco Giants-themed mask, agreed.
“It’s not a big deal,” Ainsworth said. “It’s like putting a seat belt on in your car.”
