3/14/22 UPDATE: As of Monday, March 14th, there was a drastic change for schools. The new update, through CDC guidelines, is that students, staff, and teachers are not required to wear masks indoors anymore, but they are still strongly encouraged.  This is opening up a new beginning to hopefully an end to this virus. Precautions are still in place with hand sanitizer accessible, air purifiers in use, cleaning, etc and still practicing social distancing to keep everybody safe and happy to have a comfortable learning environment for everyone.

With the pandemic constantly fluctuating, mandates changing, and masks being worn, there is now a new update on all of this information and what new regulations are being implemented in Sonoma County.

As of Wednesday Feb. 16th the county agreed with the state and changed the mask regulations to lifting masks when in an indoor public area. But what about schools? 

Usnews.com said, “Governor Gavin Newsom delayed a closely watched decision on lifting California’s school mask mandate…”

With that being said, all California K-12 schools are still required to wear masks including both students and staff. One main factor is that children have lower vaccination rates. Furthermore, masks are not completely gone. They still have to be worn in health care places, public transportation, care facilities, and homeless shelters. As far as the statistics go, the sonomacity.org website gave some numbers on how Sonoma County is doing with the vaccination. 

“As of this week, 80% of the county’s five and older population is now fully vaccinated, while 88% have received at least one dose.”

Even though the vaccination rates are improving and the amount of covid cases are declining, individual businesses and companies are still able to require masks if they want. The general rule is that if a person is not vaccinated, then they are still required to wear a mask indoors. 

Continuing with these adjustments, there are various possible opinions people might have on whether the mask mandate should be required or not. Some may believe that masks should still be worn to prevent another outbreak, whereas others may believe people have worn masks for long enough and since the vaccination rate is higher, it should not be necessary. Others may feel stressed or even anxious because people have been wearing masks for so long and this huge change can come with many more outbreaks.    

So, as masks are slowly diminishing, there are still quite a few exceptions today to keep everybody safe and healthy. Mask mandates are taken one day at a time, but this virus is still not over yet.

Sources:

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/california/articles/2022-02-14/california-delays-decision-on-lifting-school-mask-mandate?context=amp

COVID-19 Status Update – Health Order & Mask Mandate to be lifted, 80% of eligible population fully vaccinated, testing opportunities