City Council Responds To Changing County, State COVID Mandates

BEVERLY HILLS, CA — The Beverly Hills city council addressed changes to county and state mask mandates at their regular Tuesday meeting.

Most counties across California dropped their indoor mask mandates on Tuesday with exceptions for unvaccinated people, K-12 students and other high risk Californians. Los Angeles County is one of only a few holdouts, though the county did lift its outdoor mask mandate Wednesday after daily hospitalizations dropped below 2,500 for seven consecutive days, according to the county's department of public health.

LA County is not expected to lift its indoor mask mandate until new cases dip below 50 cases per 100,000 people for 14 consecutive days with no new variant, according to the Los Angeles County department of public health.

The county is anticipated to hit this threshold in mid-March, said Meena Janmohamed, emergency manager for Beverly Hills.

The city of Beverly Hills is unable to implement mandates that are less restrictive than the county, Janmohamed said.

Multiple council members expressed frustration at the county's restrictive measures and seemingly arbitrary thresholds. Many council members agreed there is a lack of public trust in county decision-making. Uniform decision making throughout California could help build this trust, council member Lester Friedman said.

"The concern that I have is that all of the counties in Southern California are less restrictive than LA County and, to a certain extent, I believe that LA County is being too restrictive in their mandates," Friedman said. "I think what we're seeing is a lack of public trust in what is occurring from the department of public health. If you don't have compliance because people are ignoring what the rules are ... I think that is more harmful to the cause than would otherwise be."

The county should offer a clear explanation for its decision to maintain the mandate, council member John Mirisch said. Mirisch said he worries about public trust as elected officials act hypocritically, referring to controversial photos of Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti and Gov. Gavin Newsom maskless at the Super Bowl and NFC Championship.

"When there's policy that's being made that's affecting all of us, there should be reasonable explanations and they should make rational sense," Mirisch said. He added: "It feels in some cases that there isn't a lot of rhyme or reason [for] what we see."

The city of Beverly Hills had 7,961 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 as of Wednesday, an increase of 68 from the week before, according to Los Angeles County department of public health data. The county has largely passed its recent omicron-fueled surge with decreasing transmission and hospitalization rates.

"Cases are down and we might be nearing the end of these mandates," mayor Bob Wunderlich said.

The council's discussion comes just a week after a tense board of education discussion about the district's masking and testing policies. Nearly 20 community members shared public comments at the meeting.