Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva will not be enforcing the new indoor mask mandate that kicks in just before midnight.
“Forcing the vaccinated and those who already contracted COVID-19 to wear masks indoors is not backed by science and contradicts the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines,” he said in a prepared statement.
“The underfunded/defunded Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department will not expend our limited resources and instead ask for voluntary compliance,” he said in a prepared statement.
The nation’s most populous county was one of the last to finally reopen fully just five weeks ago. Since then, new daily cases have risen from just over 100 per day to nearly 2000 per day.
Still, Villanueva insists, forcing fully vaccinated individuals to wear a mask is not proven to be scientifically necessary and contradicts the findings of the (more powerful) Centers for Disease Control.
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The new restrictions go into effect at 11:59 p.m. Saturday night. Enforcement, it appears, will be left to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
It is unclear if the Santa Monica Police Department will issue citations to individuals found to be in violation.
A request for comment from SMPD was not received prior to publication.
On Saturday there were 1,827 new cases of Covid-19 reported in Los Angeles County.
“The alarming increases in cases, positivity rates and the increase in hospitalizations signals immediate action must be taken to slow the spread of Covid-19,” county Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis said in a statement. “Otherwise, we may quickly see more devastating illness and death among the millions of residents.”
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