San Mateo Co. Moves Into Moderate COVID-19 Transmission Tier

SAN MATEO COUNTY, CA — San Mateo County moved into the moderate tier in the Centers for Disease Control’s COVID-19 transmission blueprint on Friday, moving it closer to meeting one of the benchmarks required by Bay Area health officials to lift the indoor mask mandate for vaccinated people.

San Mateo County joins Marin County as the only two Bay Area counties in the moderate tier. The other counties are all in either the substantial or high transmission categories.

In the past seven days, San Mateo County recorded 329 new cases, a 25 percent decrease from the previous week. Its positivity rate is at less than 1 percent, and more than 83 percent of the eligible population is fully vaccinated. There were 12 new hospital admissions over the past week, according to the CDC.

Earlier this month, health officers in eight Bay Area counties and the city of Berkeley outlined the criteria to lift the indoor mask requirement in public spaces:

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.

If the county stays in the moderate tier for three weeks, it will have met the first benchmark.