With a decision expected tomorrow on whether Los Angeles County will reimpose an indoor mask mandate due to a surge in cases of the more infectious BA.5 variant, the city of El Segundo added its name to the list today of local cities that will refuse to enforce such a rule if enforced by the county.

“My colleagues on the City Council and I strongly believe that the decision to wear a mask should be an individual’s choice and should not be imposed by Los Angeles County,” said El Segundo Mayor Drew Boyles.  “Individuals should review the available data and consider their own circumstances and make their own decisions about mask use.  Businesses need to consider the various bodies that regulate their business as part of deciding how to react to a potential change in coverage requirements.”

The council voted during a special meeting Tuesday night against implementing a potential mask mandate.

The Beverly Hills City Council held a similar vote Monday night, saying it would not impose any new mask mandates.  Ironically, in 2020 Beverly Hills was among the first cities in Los Angeles County to institute an outdoor mask mandate.  City officials decided that everyone had to wear some kind of face covering whenever they left their homes.

The cities of Long Beach and Pasadena — both of which operate their own health departments separately from the county and thus have the authority to decide their own health mandates — announced Tuesday that they would not issue mask mandates, even if the county.

“THE [Long Beach] “The Department of Health strongly encourages people to exercise personal responsibility and common sense measures to protect themselves, their loved ones and the wider community from Covid-19,” according to a Long Beach statement.  People are advised to cover up indoors when in public, to carry out rapid tests before and three to five days after social gatherings and to choose outdoor activities where possible.

Both Long Beach and Pasadena officials said they will continue to monitor the Covid situation.  Pasadena officials said they “will consider appropriate public health actions to protect our community as the situation changes.”

The county’s Department of Public Health is expected to announce Thursday whether a new mask mandate will be imposed starting Friday.

County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said the order would be imposed if the county remains in the “high” level of virus activity — as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — for two consecutive weeks.  The county will reach that two-week mark on Thursday.

The county moved into the high category when the average daily rate of new Covid-related hospital admissions reached 10 per 100,000 residents.  As of last Thursday, the county’s rate was up to 11.7 per 100,000 residents.

The number of covid infections and hospitalizations have been stabilizing and even decreasing over the past week and a half.  Ferrer said last week — and reiterated Tuesday — that if downward trends continue, the county may stop short of imposing a new mask mandate.

He told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that, given the recent cuts, “we may be able to stop the implementation of universal coverage.”

Ferrer said Tuesday that most pandemic monitoring metrics were down, noting that the average daily rate of new cases last week had dropped to about 6,100, from 6,700 the previous week.  Hospitalizations related to the virus had also stabilized, he said, as had the daily death toll – although he stressed the latter number remained very high, at about 14 deaths a day.

But on Wednesday, the numbers jumped again.  The number of newly reported Covid cases has more than doubled since Tuesday, when it was just over 3,500, to just over 7,300.  The rise follows a familiar pattern seen in recent weeks that may have given false hope at the start of the week: Because test and test results are late into the weekend, Sunday-Tuesday numbers are often much lower.  But once the backlog clears, daily case numbers generally increase significantly each day through Saturday.  Ferrer has also warned that because home test results are not being reported, the current daily tallies are likely “grossly underestimated”.

Test positivity, which as a percentage of total cases and the 7-day average is often more accurate, also rose again.  After falling almost a point to just over 14% yesterday, the numbers have recalibrated, with most of the week in the low 15% range and Wednesday’s number rising to 16.2%.

Hospitalizations due to Covid rose slightly from Monday to about 1,280, but that is down from 1,329 last Thursday.  But as Ferrer warned last week, if cases rise daily, hospitalizations will almost certainly follow suit two weeks later, making the rationale for ending the mask mandate more difficult for officials.

Deaths rose significantly today as well, from 5 on Monday to 20 today.  The latter number is in line with those seen late last week.


Los Angeles County is the only jurisdiction in the state considering the cover-up order, even though all but eight of its counties are also in the CDC’s “high” level of virus activity.

While Ferrer has defended the idea of ​​a mandate — calling it a proven and simple tool to slow the spread of the virus and protect workers in domestic businesses — opposition to the idea has grown.

County Supervisor Kathryn Barger issued a statement Monday saying she would not support an ordinance.  He said he agrees that masks are an effective tool against the spread of the virus, but he doesn’t think imposing a mandate will have the desired effect.

“I’m adamantly opposed to mandating coverage, because I really think it will have the opposite effect,” Barger said during Tuesday’s board meeting.

Supervisor Janice Hahn joined her in opposing a potential mandate, saying she feared imposing such a rule “would be very divisive for Los Angeles County.”  Both were also dissenters before mask mandates were lifted in January.

“I honestly think there is a significant amount of the population that is unwilling to accept mask mandates at this point,” Hahn said.  “And many of them, the ones who contacted me, pointed out that we have more tools now than we had at the beginning of the pandemic.

“I am personally concerned … that we are losing this time the trust of a portion of the public that has really been with us up to this point,” he said.

Hahn suggested the county simply consider expanding the list of places where masks are still required to include grocery stores and pharmacies, rather than all indoors.  Ferrer said her department would look into the idea.

City News Service contributed to this report.