The CDPH and Los Angeles County have updated their rules to allow fully vaccinated persons to enter indoor businesses without wearing masks under certain circumstances.
CDPH Update
Per CDPH guidance effective February 16, 2022, the CDPH no longer requires fully vaccinated individuals to wear masks in indoor public settings and businesses. Examples of these are retail, restaurants, theaters, family entertainment centers, meetings, state and local government offices serving the public.
Note that exceptions still apply:
- The CPDH still requires all persons to wear masks, regardless of vaccination status, in certain high-risk indoor settings, including public transit, K-12 schools, emergency shelters, healthcare settings, correctional facilities, homeless shelters, long term care settings, and adult and senior care facilities.
- If local jurisdictions mandate masking, individuals will have to comply with these local requirements
LA County Update
The County of Los Angeles’s latest health officer order, issued February 23, 2022, provides that operators of indoor public settings and businesses may now choose to allow fully vaccinated persons not to wear a mask indoors under certain circumstances. If they make this choice, they then have two options: to allow unmasking for (1) customers and workers, or (2) customers only.
Option 1 (customers and workers): A business operator who wishes to allow both fully vaccinated customers and fully vaccinated workers to unmask while indoors must:
- Verify that all customers (5 and older) and all workers, before entering indoor spaces:
- Provide proof of full vaccination against COVID-19, or
- Provide proof of a recent negative COVID-19 viral test result. For customers, the test must have been taken within two days of entry if a PCR test, or within one day if an antigen test. For workers, the negative test result must be “prior to work onsite, every 3 days.” (This language is not entirely clear: to be safe, employers should ensure that each worker shows a negative test taken within three days of the day on which the person is working); and
- Require all persons who do not show proof of full vaccination to continue to wear a well-fitting mask while indoors (as required by the state), except when actively eating or drinking.
Note that to use option 1, employers must provide and pay for each unvaccinated onsite worker to take frequent COVID tests, potentially multiple times per week.
Option 2 (customers only): A business operator who wishes to allow fully vaccinated customers to unmask while indoors, while requiring all other persons (including unvaccinated customers and workers) remain masked, must
- Verify that all customers (5 and older) and all workers, before entering indoor spaces:
- Provide proof of full vaccination against COVID-19, or
- Provide proof of a recent negative COVID-19 viral test result. Tests for customers must have been taken within two days of entry if a PCR test or one day if an antigen test.
- Require customers that are not fully vaccinated to continue to wear a well-fitting mask while indoors (as required by the state), except when actively eating or drinking.
- Require all workers to remain masked indoors.
Please note that the following apply, no matter what the business operator chooses:
- Signage is not enough: A business operator can’t just put up a sign. To verify proof of vaccination status, the business operator must actually review the person’s photo ID and the person’s vaccination card or record. To verify proof of a negative test rest, the business operator must review the person’s photo ID and the documentation of the test results. For customers, the test must be from a test provider: self-test results are not acceptable. For workers, self-test results are acceptable if performed per Cal-OSHA requirements (i.e., observed by the employer throughout).
- Free respirators: If business operators choose either option 1 or option 2 above, they must offer, at no cost to all employees, a well-fitting respirator (e.g., N95/KN95/KF94) to maximize their protection in an unmasked indoor environment.
- Exceptions: Whatever a business operator chooses, individuals do not need to meet the vaccination/negative viral test verification requirements to enter the indoor portion of the facility in the following situations, as long as they wear a well-fitted mask: (1) As part of their employment to make a delivery or pick-up, provide a service or repair to the facility, or for an emergency or regulatory purpose; (2) To get to the outdoor portion of the facility; (3) To use an indoor restroom, or (4) To order, pick-up, or pay for food or drink.
- Booster status irrelevant: The LA County order says that a person is “fully vaccinated” two weeks or more after they have received the second dose in a 2 -dose series (e.g., Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna) or 2 weeks or more after they have received a single -dose vaccine (e.g., Johnson and Johnson [J&J]/Janssen). The LA County Order does not require that the person be either boosted or not booster-eligible in order to be considered “fully vaccinated.”
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