Print
The L.A. County Department of Public Health has revised a pandemic health order to align itself with new federal guidance that eased rules on when fully vaccinated people should wear masks.
The updated health order, which goes into effect Friday, states that unless they are in crowded settings, fully vaccinated people don’t need to wear a mask when outdoors alone, with members of their household or with a small group of fully vaccinated people. They also can go without a mask when intermingling with a small group of people who are not fully vaccinated but not at high risk for experiencing serious illness or death from the coronavirus.
What are some things experts are still cautious about doing?
Earlier this month, Dr. Robert Wachter, the UC San Francisco chairman of the Department of Medicine, said in an online seminar that he has been comfortable getting a haircut and flying to see his parents now that he’s fully vaccinated. He also felt comfortable resuming a monthly poker game with fully vaccinated friends, he recently tweeted. But the 63-year-old hasn’t been eager to go to an indoor restaurant and take his mask off there.
“I’m confident I’m not going to get hospitalized and die. That feels good. But I don’t particularly want to get mild COVID because I don’t know for sure that that can’t turn into ‘long COVID’ or some long-term consequence that I don’t understand yet,” Wachter said at the seminar.
Print
Los Angeles County health officials said Tuesday that the county would be aligning itself with new federal guidance that relaxes advice on wearing masks outdoors.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday that fully vaccinated people
CDC guidance says small, private
gatherings and visits to public indoor spaces likely pose minimal risk to fully vaccinated people. It said that fully vaccinated people can intermingle indoors with unvaccinated people from a single household who are at low risk for contracting serious illness from COVID-19 without wearing masks or physical distancing.
In a news release, L.A. County’s Department of Public Health called the changes “appropriate and science-based” and said it would be adjusting its health orders to meet them.
Print
Los Angeles County is ready to once again administer the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine after federal health agencies on Friday officially lifted the pause that’s kept those doses in limbo for more than a week.
Vaccine providers with doses of the vaccine could resume administration on Saturday, as long as an updated fact sheet about the vaccine was distributed to recipients, the county announced.
“We don’t want to delay. We want to resume using the J&J vaccine,” Dr. Paul Simon, chief science officer for the L.A. County Department of Public Health said during a briefing.