County of Santa Clara Public Health Officials Announce Local Indoor Masking Requirements Will Remain in Place and Provide Updated Criteria for Lifting COVID-19 Indoor Masking Requirements

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 9, 2022

 
The County anticipates lifting indoor masking requirements in a matter of weeks

SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CALIF. – The County of Santa Clara Public Health Department announced today that it will not lift local indoor masking requirements when the State lifts its indoor masking requirement on February 16.  Instead, Santa Clara County will continue to base decisions on whether and when to lift indoor masking requirements on the risks posed by COVID-19, using clearly defined metrics related to vaccination, hospitalizations, and COVID-19 case rates.  Los Angeles County has likewise announced it will not immediately lift its local masking requirement.  The County anticipates that it will be able to lift indoor masking requirements in a matter of weeks, as case rates continue to decline.

The County previously announced metrics for lifting local masking requirements in October.  Today, the County Public Health Department announced that it had updated its prior metrics, which were adopted when the Delta variant was circulating in the community, to reflect the fact that the current Omicron variant poses less risk of severe illness and hospitalization than Delta. Specifically, the County’s prior metrics required that the 7-day average of new cases be approximately 150 or below based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “moderate” criteria.  The updated metrics allow indoor masking requirements to be lifted when the County’s 7-day average of new cases is 550 or below for at least a week.