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Sonoma County’s top health official on Monday issued a mandatory masking requirement for certain health care facilities, a move aimed at curbing the spread of influenza, COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses during the fall and winter months.
The masking order, which takes effect Nov. 1, is less restrictive than a similar one issued last year and targets facilities that care for seniors and frail or ailing patients, said Dr. Karen Smith, Sonoma County’s interim health officer.
Affected facilities include skilled nursing homes; certain areas of long-term care facilities where nursing care is provided; acute and non-acute rehabilitation facilities; infusion centers; and dialysis centers.
The order applies to all workers and visitors who enter “patient care areas,” regardless of their vaccination status.
Smith said public health data shows that these facilities are where transmission of respiratory viruses is most prevalent, and where most outbreaks are taking place.
“Those are the places where people who are most vulnerable really do need to be protected, either because of their age or they’re immunocompromised, or a combination of those things,” Smith said.
She added that often these medical facilities “already struggle to stay fully staffed and really can’t afford to have staff going out sick.” Masking, she said, protects both patients and staff.
Last year, Sonoma County health officials issued a masking order that included general acute-care hospitals, inpatient psychiatric hospitals, as well as outpatient medical clinics.
Smith said she and other Bay Area health officers consulted with clinical directors across the local health care landscape and determined that such facilities were not now hot spots for transmission.
“We decided to give them a strong recommendation to mask, but it’s up to them to decide to what degree and in what spaces,” she said.
Smith said this year’s health order also “narrowed the spaces” where masking is required. Rather than require masking “everywhere patients go,” this year’s mask mandate focuses on areas of the specified facilities where patients and providers interact rather than casually walk past each other.
“It’s less broad and, I think, more practical, as well as being supported by the data that we do have,” she said.
County health officials said similar health orders requiring medical workers to mask during the winter flu season have been issued since 2017.
Smith said the “summer surge” of COVID-19 cases, which started a little later than usual, is finally receding. Transmission across the state has been high but is now decreasing to moderate levels, she said.
Going forward, the order, which remains in effect through March 31, will be re-issued annually, unless rescinded and dates may be adjusted based on viral surveillance data, county officials said.
“We still do expect that there will be a winter wave,” she said. “But this is good, because it gives people a chance to get their COVID vaccines before it starts circulating again.”
Meanwhile, influenza transmission is still low but “it’s bound to rise again.”
You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.
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