California waiting to drop mask requirements for fully vaccinated people until next month

Fully vaccinated Californians won’t need to wear masks in most indoor and outdoor settings starting June 15, the Newsom administration announced Monday.

Vaccinated people will be able to ditch their face coverings in most settings under the new California rules, which will conform to updated guidance the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced last week. Some other states have moved to implement the new guidance more quickly, including New York, where mask mandates will lift Wednesday.

“California has made amazing progress against COVID-19,” California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said Monday announcing the change. “We’re giving California time to prepare and think through the implementation of these new guidelines from the CDC.”

After June 15, vaccinated people will still need to mask up when using public transportation and in health care settings including in doctors offices, hospitals and nursing homes.

People are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after they have received the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, or two weeks after their second shot of the two-dose Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. The CDC recommends people with compromised immune systems check with their doctor before abandoning masks, even if they are fully vaccinated.

The change will represent a major a turning point for Californians, who have been required to wear face coverings near people from outside their household since Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide mask mandate in June 2020. More recently, California updated its guidelines to allow fully vaccinated people to skip masks outside except in crowds, but still requires them to wear masks in most indoor settings.

“If you are fully vaccinated you can start doing the things you had stopped doing because of the pandemic,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a briefing Thursday announcing the new federal guidance. “We have all longed for this moment when we can get back to some sense of normalcy.”

Local COVID rules will be allowed

California’s rules will still allow counties, cities and individual businesses to set their own rules for mask wearing, meaning some local governments and private businesses could still continue requiring residents and customers to use face coverings, Ghaly said.

Vaccinated people can still catch COVID-19, although such cases of breakthrough infection are rare and usually result in less serious illness. Everyone, including fully vaccinated people, is still supposed to stay home if they have COVID-19 symptoms or test positive for the coronavirus, according to the CDC.

In California, 39% of residents are fully vaccinated, while another 12% are partially vaccinated, according to the California Department of Public Health. Those percentages will continue to rise as young teens get shots. California opened vaccine eligibility to kids ages 12 to 15 on Thursday.

The changes to the statewide mask policy won’t necessary apply to employees and workplaces, Ghaly said. California’s workplace mask regulations are being reviewed separately by the Newsom administration this week.

Criticism related to CDC guidance

Some began criticizing the Newsom administration’s timeline just after Ghaly announced it. Assemblyman Chad Mayes, I-Rancho Mirage, questioned the decision to wait to implement the CDC’s guidance.

“This is like saying, ‘we are going to follow the science, but we are going to wait until June 15 to do so,’” Mayes wrote on Twitter.

Republican businessman John Cox, who is running to replace Newsom in an upcoming recall election, criticized decision and also blasted the governor for not making the announcement himself, instead leaving it to Ghaly.

“Gavin Newsom needs to drop the mask mandate immediately,” Cox wrote in a statement. “It speaks volumes about Gavin Newsom’s leadership and the failures of his government that he is unable or unwilling to follow the guidance of the CDC.”

During the Monday press conference, Ghaly defended the Newsom administration’s decision to wait.

“It’s in no way saying that the science or the direction by the CDC is wrong, or to challenge it,” Ghaly said. “It is really just giving our state additional time to implement it with a high degree of integrity, with the continued focus on protecting the public.”

Last week, the California Nurses Association blasted the CDC’s guidance as premature and said lifting mask mandates now would put nurses and the general public at risk. On Monday, the association’s lobbyist Stephanie Roberson praised the Newsom administration for waiting but still expressed reservations about the change.

“While we appreciate that the governor is taking a more careful approach… if they wait a month, they’ll still be making decisions based on CDC’s flawed guidance,” Roberson said. “We implore the governor to continue to be cautious.”

Newsom had said last week that California was planning to relax its mask mandates by June 15, when the state is set to fully reopen. He said Tuesday in an interview with Fox that after June 15 Californians would have to wear masks “only in those settings that are indoor, only in those massively large settings... otherwise we’ll make guidance recommendations but no mandates, and no mandates and no restrictions at businesses large and small.”