Millions who are unvaccinated provide virus new opportunity for variants, expert says
Relaxing mask mandate 'reasonable' but expert says unvaccinated provide virus new opportunity for variants
UC Berkeley infectious disease expert, Dr. John Swartzberg says what California is doing by lifting the indoor mask mandate is reasonable as COVID cases drop sharply and that it can be done safely. However, he says there's no assurance we're off COVID's roller coaster as millions of unvaccinated people in the U.S. offer the virus opportunity to replicate and create more new variants.
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - In a week, California's statewide mask mandate is due to expire as data shows a marked drop in the virus's effect.
With the state's masking mandates scheduled to expire on the 15th, counties are deciding what to do since they have the ultimate say. As of February 15th, the state will no longer require general indoor masking for vaccinated folks because COVID cases have fallen by two thirds over the month and hospitalizations are stable.
"We need to prune off the restrictions as we can do it safely and so I think it's reasonable what we're doing now," said UC Berkeley Infectious Disease Expert Dr. John Swartzberg.
However, the unvaccinated must still wear masks in all indoor public settings as well as children in school for now. Regardless of vaccination status, pre-omicron restrictions still stand for public transit and group or so-called congregate living sites.
Marin and Solano counties have already decided that they will go along with the state reverting to pre-omicron requirements.
"You know, with the cases being going lower it's absolutely valid to start removing the mask mandate to ge everybody sort of go back to normalcy," said San Rafael resident Marvin Javier.
"I think we're ready because, look Marin is like sort of the role model of the fact that we're 90% vaccinated," San Rafael resident Sean Martin.
"I think it would be great, get rid of this. Yeah, I'm all for it," said San Rafael resident Mary Rawles.
But it's a somewhat two-sided sword.
"When we relax some of the precautions that we know work, it's going to frighten some people and for a lot of other people, it's going to make them feel a lot better," said Dr. Swartzberg. That's provided there are no more variants. "The problem is that there's no assurance that we're off this rollercoaster," said Swartzberg.
Dr. Swartzberg says this roller coaster of variant, surge, new variant, surge, new variant and so on, may go on as long millions insist on not being vaccinated.
SEE ALSO: Who's lifting the indoor Bay Area mask mandate? A county by county breakdown
"The people who are not immune to this virus, who are going to become viral factories. And, when you're a viral factory, the virus is gonna make mistakes and that's where variants come from. So, it's the non-immune people who keep this pandemic going," said the doctor.
So, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, San Francisco and Santa Clara counties are still considering the matter Sonoma and Napa counties as well as city of Berkeley have yet to respond to us.