Los Angeles County Public Health officials announced Thursday that COVID case numbers have “doubled over the past few weeks.” It was the first press conference held by the department in months after a “relatively calm” summer.
Outbreaks have occurred at the DGA building on Sunset Blvd., Lionsgate offices in Santa Monica, Disney Feature Animation in Burbank and on the set of “The Masked Singer.” Lionsgate temporarily brought back mandatory masking, but lifted the requirement last Saturday.
Health officials say that while not at the same level as last year, the number of daily cases has increased from 264 in four weeks to 571 this week.
Barbara Ferrer said the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health isn’t yet asking for the reinstatement of the masking requirements. LA Times reported.
“There’s nothing that’s changed. We’re not announcing new safety measures today,” said Ferrer, although she added that she wouldn’t rule masking in the future.
“I’m never going to say there’s not going to be a time when we all need to put our masks back on. I am going to say we certainly don’t all need to put our masks back on now. We are at a place where people make their own assessment,” she said.
“We want everyone to enjoy this last weekend of the summer, and we think this can be easily done with some simple basic safety measures,” Ferrer added.
The CDC will review this year’s COVID vaccine on Sept. 12. The vaccine is intended to protect against Omicron subvariant 1.5 XBB, which has been dubbed “Kraken.”
You can also read about how to use LA’s health departmenT and the CDC Masking may still be recommended to help reduce the chance of infection, hospitalization, and even death due to the COVID virus. However, masking has not been made mandatory by President Biden since he officially ended COVID on May 11, 2009.
SAG-AFTRA dropped its requirement that commercial shoots require proof of immunization in May.
