California Governor Says Mask Mandate To End After June 15

Speaker 1: 00:00 The CDC is issuing new guidance, allowing fully vaccinated people to ditch masks, indoors and all, but the most crowded settings we have yet to hear from San Diego County officials on the announcement. But also this week, governor Newsome announced the state's mask mandate would end on June 15th, though. There will still be some rules about masks indoors. Meanwhile, it's been reported. San Diego County officials were left out of those state discussions. And after the state announcement said they have no plans to lift the mask mandate until case rights case rates drop. Dr. Christian Ramers is a specialist in infectious diseases who oversees clinical programs at family health centers of San Diego. And he sits on the counties vaccine clinical advisory group. We spoke to him prior to the CDCs announcement today. Here's that interview. Speaker 2: 00:50 Thank you, Jay. Good to be with you. Speaker 1: 00:52 What exactly will the state rules about mask wearing be on June 15th? Speaker 2: 00:57 Oh boy. Well, I wish I knew exactly. As you mentioned in the header that the County has not been involved in these conversations. And I think that over the coming weeks we'll work those out the trouble is it has a little to do with what the case rates actually are and what the vaccination rates are locally. So, you know, I think this is a major success story that we're even talking about this and the vaccines have really allowed us to regain a lot of the freedoms that we have lost when the mandates went into place, uh, last year. Um, but it'll have to be a negotiation between the state and the County about what the actual rules are. I can tell you from a scientific perspective, you know, masks are just one of the tools that we have along with distancing and vaccines. And we've been so impressed with the results of the vaccines and we're in a very different place than we were last year when we were worried about our health care system being overwhelmed. Most of the vulnerable people in San Diego have been vaccinated. And so the risk of us being overwhelmed is really low at this point. Speaker 1: 01:55 And so we've been trending in this direction for a little while now. So why do you think the sudden change over mask mandates? Um, now why do you think this is happening and were you surprised? Speaker 2: 02:07 Yeah, I think what, what the state is doing and what CDC is actually doing in, in bear, uh, guidance is really trying to get it right where we make recommendations gradually as they are warranted. CDC is really in a tough spot because if they go too far and we have some resulting surges and outbreaks, it's really hard to walk things back. So they've been rather circumspect and rather, um, gradual in terms of their recommendation. Um, but I think it's going to head in the direction where as our vaccination rates, uh, approach herd immunity or what we think is herd immunity that we can regain those freedoms is San Diego County on board with this. Uh, you know, I think, uh, there's always a negotiation between the County and the state. Um, the science is the science and it certainly is leading us in that direction. Speaker 2: 02:54 I, I think what you're hearing from San Diego County officials is that same reluctance to want to not have to something back, you know, w what would you really don't want is to have things open up and people stop wearing masks, and then us have some new unexpected twist or turn, uh, the variants pose a little bit of a threat here because they may reduce the effectiveness of the vaccinations just a little bit. Um, and then of course, new outbreaks are really hard to contain once they start. Um, so I do think it's very reasonable to consider taking masks off in the outdoor environment. We know that being outdoors is very protective, but COVID, hasn't changed. You know, we're still seeing posts to a hundred, to 200 people a day, and the disease, if anything has gotten worse, it's become more infectious. And these new variants and everything, uh, what has changed is that the environment and that the health care system is unlikely to be overwhelmed. And so it's becoming less sort of government mandates and more individual responsibility. Speaker 1: 03:47 Do you think getting kids 12 to 15 vaccinated could quickly drop the case rates and, and obviously increase the vaccination rates? Speaker 2: 03:56 Yeah, I actually do. And so I'm very much in favor of the ruling from the FDA and the CDC to allow 12 year olds and up to be vaccinated. I'm actually taking my 13 year old daughter in this afternoon for her first dose. And she's been ecstatic just waiting for this and waiting to regain some of the freedoms, like hugging her friends and having sleep overs, participating in sports in school, in person. Um, so, uh, you know, adolescents are part of the, of the population that is at risk of getting COVID and spreading COVID. And so the more people that we can get protected the better Speaker 1: 04:28 Are you finding a lot of vaccine hesitancy and how have your clinics been dealing with that? Speaker 2: 04:35 Yeah, I wouldn't say it's a lot, but there are, there's some people that are just absolutely no, they don't want to get a vaccine and that's fine. Their, their minds are not likely to be changed, but there's a lot of people that are on the fence. Um, and I think we've gotten to about a 50% level where we're, we're getting a lot of people protected. The next 25% is going to be individually conversations between healthcare providers and parents or healthcare providers and patients. Um, a lot of people just have some questions, some people want to wait and see, I think we're sort of moving into the phase where we've wait, we've done enough waiting and seeing we have, you know, over 150 million people in the U S that have been vaccinated. And the safety record is just really, really good. These are incredibly safe vaccines. Um, and we're going to have more and more things like flying on airplanes, um, potentially, uh, you know, sports and, and all the regulations that we have, for example, the Padres, uh, having, having their whole testing protocol and everything, the more people are vaccinated, the better for us all. Speaker 1: 05:32 Could that hesitancy though, keep case rates from dropping and then stand in the way of relaxing mask mandates in the County. Speaker 2: 05:40 Absolutely. Yes. And that's what people like myself are very worried about is that there are definitely still pockets of people that are vulnerable for COVID. In fact, I'm in our monoclonal antibody infusion clinic right now, but the only people we're seeing come in with COVID now are people that have not been vaccinated yet. So I'm worried about is that we'll reach a point where people who have gotten vaccinated are protected and they're fine. And people that haven't are the ones that are continuing to suffer and continuing to allow these outbreaks to occur. The more cases that still occur, the more likelihood variants are going to emerge. And then we might be in more trouble. Speaker 1: 06:13 I want to circle back to the 12 to 15 year olds getting vaccinated. I understand your clinic, family health centers is vaccinating that age group today. Tell us about that. And where are your clinics? Speaker 2: 06:26 Sure. So a number of things had to happen before we were authorized to do this, the FDA earlier this week authorized this. And then the CDC is advisory committee on immunization practices met last night, but at 14 to zero, essentially for giving the green light here, um, our main vaccination centers such as at Logan Heights at city Heights and in Chula Vista, uh, and in the diamond neighborhoods are all offering, uh, vaccinations for 12 to 15 year olds. Uh, parental permission is required. Um, but we're giving Pfizer at all the sites, um, which is the only one that's authorized. So, and essentially the dose is the same. The procedures are the same, uh, as for adult vaccinations for this age group. Speaker 1: 07:02 And the most important question that everyone is Hasking what do parents need to do or bring to get their children vaccinated? Speaker 2: 07:10 Yeah, so I, I do know at County sites they're being required to bring a proof of identification or at least a date of birth. Anything that can prove that the child is actually 12 years old, we've had some people with 11 and 10 year old children trying to sneak them in there. And that's not really allowed at this point yet. And then parental permission. There's a lot of flexibility with this. It can be written permission. Um, it can be, you know, the state has said that FaceTiming and actually having video permission, if the parent can't be right there is allowed and we want to get more people protected and don't want to put barriers up there, but we just do need parental permission in order to administer the vaccine. Speaker 1: 07:44 All right. I've been speaking with Dr. Christian. Ramers a specialist in infectious diseases who oversees clinical programs at family health centers of San Diego. Dr. Ramers. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me.