Masks Mandated For Trains, Buses, Ubers, And Airports In LA County

LOS ANGELES, CA — Los Angeles County health officials on Thursday issued a new COVID-19 health order, mandating masks on trains and buses, in taxis and ride-sharing vehicles, and inside airports and train and bus stations. The order, which takes effect Friday, comes just two days after the county allowed people to bare their naked faces on mass transit once again.

The abrupt policy reversals are due to a legal battle out of Florida over federal mask mandates for mass transit passengers. U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle this week struck down the U.S. government's rule requiring masks to be worn on public transportation, calling it an overreach. Instantly, masking mandates fell across the country, and by Tuesday, Los Angeles County had followed suit.

However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continued to urge masking on mass transit, saying it continues to believe that requiring masks in indoor transportation settings "remains necessary for the public health."

By Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday appealed the ruling. And by Thursday, LA County, again, reversed course to adopt one of the strictest masking mandates in the nation.

"They are experts," Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Thursday during an online briefing. "They made a determination that at this point having that requirement in place is necessary for the public's health, and that resonates with us."

While apologizing for the confusion the abrupt reversals have caused, Ferrer explained why it's important to wear masks while on packed trains and buses.

“Public transportation hubs that are indoors are places where A) There’s a lot of mingling; B) They’re often crowded; and C) In some of those settings, it’s really hard to have adequate ventilation,” Ferrer added.

The new orders come as COVOD-19 cases are on the rise in Los Angeles County.

The county on Thursday reported another 2,123 infections., a dramatic spike from daily case tallies just two weeks ago. Over a 14-day period cases clumbed more than 80 percent statewide and about 33 percent in Los Angeles County.

The highly contagious Omicorn subvariant BA.2 is driving the spike in Los Angeles and elswhere around the country.

In the meantime, the CDC is fighting to keep its transit mask mandate in place.

"CDC will continue to monitor public health conditions to determine whether such an order remains necessary," according to a statement from the agency. "CDC believes this is a lawful order, well within CDC's legal authority to protect public health."

In response to Mizelle's ruling on Monday, public transportation agencies across Los Angeles County announced that masks would become optional, including aboard Metrolink commuter trains and on Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses and rail lines. Los Angeles International Airport and Hollywood Burbank Airport also announced that masks were optional.

Ferrer said the county's renewed order — which will take effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday — will reinstate mask orders in all of those settings. The rule will not apply to people aboard airplanes, which are beyond the county's jurisdiction.

Ferrer said she anticipates the cities of Pasadena and Long Beach, which have their own independent health departments, will align with the county and also reinstate the mask requirement on public transit and at transportation hubs. That would mean Long Beach Airport would also be impacted.

It was unclear how the requirement at airports will be enforced. The Transportation Security Administration announced this week that it will no longer enforce mask-wearing rules at airports in response to the federal judge's ruling.

She said she feels "really, really sorry" that the new county order will likely create confusion among residents feeling a sense of "whiplash" due to rapidly changing rules. But she noted that the CDC never changed its recommendations regarding mask-wearing on public transit, and said the Florida court ruling was made by "a federal judge with little experience in public health" who questioned the CDC's authority.

Ferrer said public transportation settings can often be crowded, putting people in cramped environments with sometimes-little ventilation, conditions that can spur spread of the virus.

She stressed that the county is still seeing "a lot of transmission" of COVID-19, and the infectious BA.2 subvariant of the virus is continuing to spread -- now representing 84% of all local cases that undergo special testing to identify variants. A pair of offshoot "sublineages" of BA.2 have now also been identified, one of which has already been linked to "significant spread" of cases in parts of New York.

While BA.2 is blamed for rising case numbers, those cases still have not led to a spike in hospitalizations due to the virus. In fact, hospitalizations have continued to trend downward. But Ferrer said that doesn't diminish the risk of new and potentially more dangerous variants of the virus developing the more it circulates..

The virus "is still equated with significant illness for some people," she said. "It still can cause, even for people who experience mild illness when the first get infected, it can still cause for a good percentage of people `long COVID."'

Throughout the pandemic, Los Angeles County has often imposed stricter COVID mandates than those required by the state and federal government. It was one of the first jurisdictions to impose widespread indoor masking mandates, and it maintained mask requirements for large-scale outdoor events even as similar restrictions were eased elsewhere.

Ferrer said the county's seven-day average daily number of new cases is now 1,261, up from 1,017 the previous week. The average daily rate of people testing positive for the virus was holding around 2%, one of its highest levels since late February.

Another 13 COVID-related deaths were reported Thursday.

According to state figures, there were 224 COVID-positive patients in county hospitals as of Thursday, down from 230 on Wednesday. Of those patients, 22 were being treated in intensive care, down from 28 a day earlier.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on the Los Angeles Patch