Here's When The Mask Mandate In Danville Could Be Eliminated

DANVILLE, CA — Unmasked, indoor New Year's Eve celebrations may be possible for fully vaccinated Danville residents if current COVID-19 trends continue in Contra Costa County, the county's health chief said Tuesday.

"It really depends on the actions of our community," County health officer Chris Farnitano said at Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting. "The more people who get vaccinated, the more people who are safe and wear masks, the faster we will get to getting these metrics met and getting to the place where we can all start safely taking off our masks."

Regionally and across the country, cases and hospitalizations have continued to fall as vaccination rates increase.

County Health Services Director Anna Roth told the board the numbers are headed in the right direction.

"Cases in our community are going down," Roth said. "Over the past two weeks our rates have dropped 34 percent overall and hospitalizations by 15 percent. As of yesterday, we had 69 people in the hospital. Just over a month ago we had 186, which was nearly three times the amount we had yesterday, so we're seeing great improvement."

This update came less than a week after county health officers in eight Bay Area counties plus Berkeley revealed a list of three requirements that must be met in order to rescind the mask mandates.

Those requirements are as follows.

1. The jurisdiction reaches the moderate (yellow) COVID-19 transmission tier, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and remains there for at least three weeks.
2. COVID-19 hospitalizations in the jurisdiction are low and stable, in the judgment of the health officer.
3. One of the following applies:

• Some 80 percent of the jurisdiction's total population is fully vaccinated with two doses of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or one dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccines. (Booster shots are not considered.)
• Eight weeks have passed since a COVID-19 vaccine was authorized for emergency use by federal and state authorities for 5- to 11-year-olds.

Currently, Contra Costa County is in the orange tier, which indicates substantial COVID-19 spread. That's one tier above yellow.

"If current data trends continue, Contra Costa may enter the yellow tier of transmission as soon as the end of this month and may meet all the criteria by December or early January," Farnitano told the board.

When it comes to vaccination rates, 72 percent of the county's total population was vaccinated as of Monday.

In Danville, about nine in 10 eligible residents age 12 and older were vaccinated as of Wednesday, according to county data.

Masks would still be required in places such as schools, hospitals or other areas subject to state and federal rules. Businesses, nonprofits, churches and other institutions will still have the right to impose their own requirements.

See also: Mask Order Will Lift In Danville If These Goals Are Met