California Governor Gavin Newsom yesterday issued an order requiring all residents to wear face coverings in public areas as the state continues to reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic. The order comes as new cases are increasing and new guidance from the California Department of Public Health warns that asymptomatic or presymptomatic people can still spread the disease.
“Our numbers are going up, not going down. Hospitalization numbers are just starting to creep back up, and I’m very concerned by what we’re seeing. We think the most impactful thing we can do, short of going back to a stay-at-home order, is wearing face coverings when we can’t practice physical distancing.”
– Governor Gavin Newsom
People will be required to wear masks or other coverings in public spaces, on public transportation, while seeking medical care, if out shopping, and in most work environments.
Newsom said the statewide order was a necessity as people are not obeying independent municipalities’ mandatory mask-wearing measures. There was no mention of how the order will be enforced, or what the punishment will be for not obeying.
California has seen 167,234 confirmed coronavirus cases and 5,356 deaths.
Full Order Below:
Just cover your face it doesn’t need to be a n95 just cover you face when you go into a store or a crowded area outside take it off if your in Tahoe your in the forest
How about actually ramping up testing and contact tracing programs, which have been all talk so far as I can tell? How about some guidance on where to actually get a decent mask? And still no acknowledgement that if you’re not talking, singing, shouting, coughing, sneezing, etc. that mask really isn’t doing much of anything at all? Or that masks, if you’re really outside and not going near anyone, are truly nothing more than an annoyance? (The above has been echoed repeatedly by epidemiological experts.)
I’m all for keeping the numbers down. The fact that the focus in many places has become not overwhelming hospital beds, when it should be not getting people sick to start with, is sickening, but masks are not a panacea and there are caveats and nuances to their use that official guidance rarely if ever mentions. It’s getting a bit tiring seeing half measure after half measure when we could be doing so many proactive things to actually, safely, begin to return to something resembling normal.
I’ve seen restaurants reopening under official guidance, with dozens of people seated outside in a relatively small area. If that’s okay, quickly passing someone on the street without a mask is not a problem. If the latter isn’t okay, what business do we have trying to reopen anything nonessential?
Tahoe is out of control with all the Nasty Bay Area folks up here not social distancing or wearing a mask whatsoever so many people up here doesn’t even look like we’re in a pandemic people crowded everywhere and no masks