Governor Gavin Newsom announced California will lift its indoor mask mandate on February 15.
Newsom’s decision allows individual counties to choose whether or not they will lift mask mandates.
On Wednesday morning, all Bay Area counties except one said they will follow in Newsom’s footsteps. Starting February 16, the following counties will end their mandate for most indoor public settings:
- Alameda
- Contra Costa
- Marin
- Monterey
- Napa
- San Francisco
- San Mateo
- Santa Cruz
- Solano
- Sonoma
- City of Berkeley
Santa Clara is the only Bay Area County that will keep the stricter mask regulations in place.
“Currently we are emerging from the omicron surge and it’s been about a month since the peak and our cases and our case rates are 40 percent of what they were,” Santa Clara Health Director Dr. Sara Cody said. ” But we still have very high levels of community transmission, still higher than at any other point in the pandemic pre omicron. And so the risk of being exposed to someone with COVID in our community is still high.”