Mask mandates will be returning to several counties in California’s San Francisco Bay Area starting next month.
The orders, which were handed down by individual counties, apply mainly to health care workers, although at least two Bay Area counties have extended the requirement to visitors and patients.
A similar mandate was handed down broadly across the Bay Area for the 2023–2024 fall-through-spring period.
Health officials in counties who have issued upcoming mask mandates say that the face coverings are designed to reduce the spread of COVID-19, influenza, and other respiratory viruses, harking back to the COVID-19 pandemic when mandates were widespread across much of the United States.
Where the Mandates Are Going Into Effect
Alameda County, which encompasses the city of Oakland, issued an order last month that mandates staff at health care facilities to wear masks between Nov. 1, 2024, and March 31, 2025.
“The fall and winter of 2023-2024 saw substantial waves of RSV, flu and COVID19, and a similar pattern is expected this year,” the health order said, adding that such viruses “typically circulate and peak in Alameda County during the late fall and winter months.”
It warned that any violation of the order’s provision in Alameda County “constitutes an imminent threat and menace to public health, constitutes a public nuisance, and is punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both.”
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