CA May Require Masks For Indoor Workers Until 2022 [Survey]

CALIFORNIA — California in mid-June will lift many of the coronavirus restrictions that residents have grown accustomed to. But the state's workforce regulators are taking a more cautious approach and could require face masks indoors where unvaccinated people are present.

The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health last week proposed that employers keep mask and social distancing requirements in some settings until early next year, a departure from Gov. Gavin Newsom's guidance.

Cal/OSHA will vote on the proposal Thursday, The Mercury News reported.

The agency also recommended Friday that the state keep a July 31 deadline to update employer pandemic safety rules instead of lifting some coronavirus restrictions on June 15.

The agency proposed the following guidelines.

• Fully vaccinated employees could forgo face masks in a room where everyone else is vaccinated.
• Masks would be required if the status of all employees was unknown.
• Employers would need to supply N95 masks for those who are not fully vaccinated and for those working alongside them indoors.
• The extended masking requirement may also require employers to track vaccination status.

The new rules would "create policies and procedures for two classes of people: vaccinated and nonvaccinated," Helen Cleary, director of the Phylmar Regulatory Roundtable, a coalition of large businesses, told The Associated Press.

The recommendation differs from guidance by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It advised on May 13 that fully vaccinated people may forgo masks indoors.

"All workers, vaccinated or not, deserve protection in the workplace and the tools to exercise their rights," Stephen Knight, of the Bay Area-based worker advocacy group WorkSafe, told The Mercury News. "The language seems better calibrated to actual workplace conditions than the broad-brush relaxation recently proposed by the federal CDC."

The changes to the proposal drew criticism from business and agricultural groups.

"We are disappointed to see that this new revised draft does not correspond to the governor’s June 15th opening, and that vaccinated individuals will have to continue to wear masks in the workplace," California Chamber of Commerce policy advocate Rob Moutrie said in an email to The Associated Press.

Groups argued that the mask requirement could cause a shortage of N95 masks at a time when the state is expected to enter another potentially devastating wildfire season, fanned by an ongoing drought and rising temperatures.

The regulations imposed by the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board apply to almost every workplace in the state. Pandemic rules would apply to all employees except those working from home.

Also under the revised rules, until July 31, employees working indoors or those working outdoors at events characterized as "mega" events — with 10,000 people or more — would have to be separated by 6 feet unless they are wearing an N95 mask, according to Cal/OSHA's draft.

As the standard board's emergency hearing approaches next week, new regulations could take effect in mid-June.

"If the state is going to mandate these types of regulations like the N95 mask, then there needs to be some sort of funding to that," Heath Flora, a state assemblyman and vice chair of the state's Committee on Labor and Employment, told ABC7.

A little more than 50 percent of Californians are fully vaccinated, according to state data posted Saturday. Some 12 percent have been partially vaccinated. That leaves about 12 million residents unvaccinated, the state estimated Thursday.

With less than three weeks left until California reopens, the state's leaders are scrambling to get more residents vaccinated in time.

In a major push to inoculate as many Californians as possible by the June reopening date, Newsom offered a massive vaccination incentive: a chance to win $1.5 million or $50,000.

It is the largest vaccination incentive program in the nation.

"These are an opportunity to say thank you to those not only seeking to get vaccinated, as we move forward, but also those that have been vaccinated," Newsom told reporters on Thursday.

READ MORE: CA Offers Huge Vaccine Incentive: A Chance To Win $1.5 Million

The state is poised to open regardless as cases plummeted dramatically several months ago and remained low in stark contrast to the state's winter coronavirus surge. The state's positivity rate has also consistently hovered around 1 percent, among the lowest rates in the country.

"We are now at a point, given our metrics that we've been watching, California is at a place where we can begin to talk about moving beyond the blueprint," Dr. Mark Ghaly, the state's health secretary, said earlier this month.

Lifting restrictions will inevitably result in some increased transmissions, Ghaly said. But the health care system should be able to handle them, and local officials can still impose additional limits if there are outbreaks, he added.

Health officials will also continue tracking whether virus mutations start breaking through vaccinations, which he said could prompt a return to restrictions.

"We're going to be watching that very closely," he said. "But I think we are in a place statewide where we have a significant number of people vaccinated and protected."

READ MORE: CA To Require Vaccination, Negative Test For Indoor 'Mega' Events

California Coronavirus Data as of Sunday

• 3,684,388 confirmed cases to date.

• 1,079 newly recorded confirmed cases Saturday.

• 0.8 percent is the seven-day positivity rate.

• 65,586,172 tests have been conducted in California.

• 62,006 COVID-19 deaths have been recorded since the start of the pandemic.

• 37,437,314 vaccine shots have been administered statewide.