Contra Costa County recommends masks during summer COVID surge

CONCORD, Calif. - The Contra Costa County Health Department is recommending people wear masks indoors because of a summer COVID surge. 

Waste water samples from May to July show that COVID quadrupled in the county. 

The new, "FLiRT" variant  of COVID is particularly contagious, according to health officials, and is causing the virus to spread across the western United States. 

Health officials are recommending that people older than 65 or who are immunocompromised wear masks in some enclosed, indoor settings. 

Some people told KTVU on Wednesday that they would wear masks to protect others, but they're not worried themselves.  

Others said they won't go back to masking. 

"I don't want that on my face again," Leo Raymundo of Concord said. "I had it on for a whole year at school. It's hard to breathe."

Health officials want to remind people, this is a recommendation, not an order.

Earlier this summer, San Francisco issued a similar recommendation to mask indoors.