Of the eight Bay Area counties that issued a new indoor mask mandate over the summer in response to the delta variant of COVID-19, Marin County was the only one able to satisfy the shared criteria for when the mandate can be lifted.
One of the three criteria is having low case rates, and Marin County is seeing an uptick in COVID-19 cases post-Thanksgiving and, as of Wednesday, is the only Bay Area county in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “high” transmission category.
Despite the case increase, there is exactly one individual in the county currently hospitalized with COVID-19. Marin has 85% of its total population fully vaccinated against COVID-19, so the county’s current case and hospitalization figures illustrate that vaccines are not perfectly effective at stopping transmission but are highly protective against severe illness and death.
Because of this reality, county health officer Dr. Matt Willis announced in a Tuesday video that the county will no longer be using COVID-19 case rates to set policy such as mask mandates.
“We think it’s important at this stage to reorient what we’re most concerned about, which is severe illness and death,” he said. “Cases are increasingly mild, so we have shifted towards a more benign form of COVID-19 infection and disease based on vaccination rates.”
Willis said that for the mask mandate to be reimposed, there would need to be five patients hospitalized per 100,000 residents, which translates to 13 patients across the county. For reference, the county had a peak of 20 hospitalizations during the summer delta wave, and an all-time peak of 39 patients in January 2021.
Early data points on the omicron variant, which was previously detected in San Francisco, suggest the variant is more mild than past strains, and that vaccines will still provide protection against severe illness.
As a result, omicron is likely to cause an increase in cases in the Bay Area but not necessarily a resultant increase in hospitalizations.
San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Napa and Sonoma counties still have mask mandates in effect that are linked to case rates.