Los Angeles County is one of the first local jurisdictions to reinstate its mask mandate. The county forced both vaccinated and unvaccinated residents to wear masks indoors starting on July 17 supposedly due to the rapid uptick in new COVID-19. (Related: VAX SCAM REVEALED: Los Angeles County brings back mask mandates, even for the vaccinated.)
"We expect to keep masking requirements in place until we begin to see improvements in our community transmission of COVID-19," said Los Angeles County Health Officer Muntu Davis, when he was asked how long the mandate would stay in place. "But waiting for us to be at high community transmission level before making a change would be too late."
Shortly after Los Angeles County reimposed masking on all of its residents, all of the leading public health officials in California's Bay Area issued a joint statement recommending wearing masks indoors.
The Bay Area counties were followed by Atlanta Public Schools. On Thursday, July 22, the school district announced all students and staff are required to wear masks as soon as the new school year begins on Aug. 5, regardless of vaccination status.
On the same day, county officials in Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, announced that they will reinstate the mask mandate for all court facilities. According to an administrative order signed by the chief justice of the State Supreme Court, everyone inside court facilities, visitors, judges and court employees alike, must wear masks.
The next day, the city of New Orleans issued a "mask advisory," strongly encouraging residents to wear masks when indoors. New Orleans Department of Health Director Dr. Jennifer Avegno said the mask advisory was put out in response to the city's "inadequate vaccination rate."
Avegno's claim is not supported by evidence. Recent data shows that 51.2 percent of New Orleans is fully vaccinated.
The latest jurisdictions to reimpose their mask mandates are St. Louis and St. Louis County in Missouri and the city of Savannah, Georgia.
St. Louis and St. Louis County announced on Monday, July 25, that residents are required to wear masks in indoor public spaces regardless of vaccination status.
Savannah repealed its mask mandate in June. But on Monday, Mayor Van Johnson, a Democrat, argued that the city needed to bring it back due to the recent post-vaccine outbreak. Upon Johnson's instruction, masks are now compulsory for everyone in the city in indoor public spaces.
Opposition to the return of mask mandates growing
People and groups alike are pushing back against these new mask mandates. In Los Angeles, health freedom advocates staged a series of "maskless shopping" protests in stores all over the city.
"Take off your masks. Come on guys, by now you know it's a scam so wake up," said one protester in a shopping center in the city.
"The vaccine is killing people," said another woman in the same protest. "You are listening to bad science."
Similar dissatisfaction can be seen from local and state politicians. In West Covina, a city in the eastern part of Los Angeles County, Councilman Tony Wu called the mandate "BS."
"We are absolutely not going to enforce nothing about this BS," he said.
Elected officials from nearly a dozen other towns in Los Angeles County also wrote a letter to the county supervisor demanding their views on the mask mandate be considered.
"We have had enough of these policies! We demand that you stop this one-size-fits-all approach to health and health outcomes," read the letter. "We implore you to modify this recent order, engage with us, and set a policy that better reflects the unique context of our area."
Former Republican mayor of San Diego Kevin Faulconer, who is hoping to unseat Gov. Gavin Newsom in the upcoming recall election, said in a statement that he opposes the mandate.
"We need to be reopening our state, not reimposing unnecessary restrictions," he said. "If Gavin Newsom had any common sense, he'd step up and oppose this, that's what I'll do as governor."
In Wake County, North Carolina, parents and their children protested outside the meeting of the Wake County school board over the state's requirement that children wear masks in school.
"If you are really concerned about children and their social and emotional health, you would not have a mask on their face," said one parent. "It's time for us to recognize that every person's health is their own responsibility, and our children are our responsibility. It's not theirs."
In Missouri, Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced on his social media accounts that he intended to file a lawsuit against St. Louis and St. Louis County to stop the mask mandate in the area.
"The citizens of St. Louis and St. Louis County are not subjects – they are free people," he wrote. "As their Attorney General I'll be filing suit Monday to stop this insanity."
Learn more about the return of the mask mandates and the people and organizations fighting tooth and nail to oppose them by reading the latest articles at Pandemic.news.
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