Written by Lev Finzi
Friday, June 3rd marked the first day of the indoor mask mandate being re-implemented in Alameda County. The mandate will affect all public places in the county.
The mask mandate had been decided upon by the Alameda County Public Health Department. The decision was made based on the rising COVID-19 rate in the county, which has been going up over the past couple of weeks. The rates of COVID-19 have been much greater than summer and winter’s Delta variant outbreak in the County. Currently, the County is experiencing a range of 800-900 new cases a day, and in addition, approximately 102 are being confined to the hospital because of them being infected by the disease.
The county is the first to reinstate the mandate since the end of the winter’s stream of infections. K-12 Schools are not affected by the mandate and will remain mandate-less because it is the end of the school year. Since the schools are not being affected by the mandate, that leaves other areas in the County to be considered as exceptions.
Local business owners have shared their concerns about the new mandate. Lucinda Jackson, a local business owner located in the East Bay said she has returned to her business after an almost 2 year-long hiatus since the start of the 2020 pandemic. “No. No no no no no, They said it wouldn’t happen again. They said on TV masks wouldn’t be back. Everyone was saying they wouldn’t be back. Businesses here don’t want them because they cut into business. But look what happened. They brought them back,”
“This is the same government that right after all the BLM protests, said to go out and support black-owned businesses. And now, by putting the mandates back, they are hurting us. This isn’t a one-dimensional issue. Putting the mandates back have consequences way beyond health, which, we should note, isn’t hospitalizing nearly as many people now. This makes me ashamed of my County,” said Lucinda.
Other Counties in the California area have not given any new restrictions to their citizens, but they noted the rising COVID-19 rates.
Photo Cred: Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group
