Nearly one month after California pulled the plug on COVID-19 restrictions, cases have seen a recent uptick here in the Bay Area and across the country.
The rise in cases is correlated with the spread of the Delta variant among mostly unvaccinated people, according to multiple sources. There have also been rare breakthrough cases where fully vaccinated people are getting sick with the virus.
The Bay Area has been placed on a federal “hot spot” list after cases have nearly doubled in Alameda County. Sonoma County has seen a recent spike in COVID-19 hospitalizations and at least 59 residents at a homeless shelter in Santa Rosa have tested positive for the virus, according to multiple reports.
With this in mind, there have been ongoing debates about whether or not the state, counties and businesses should reinstate indoor mask requirements for vaccinated residents to prevent the spread of the Delta variant.
Sacramento and Yolo counties are urging vaccinated residents to mask up indoors. Their announcements come shortly after Los Angeles County made the same recommendation to its residents, who since then has made it official and reinstated mask requirements regardless of vaccination status starting on Saturday, July 17.
In Santa Clara County, the Delta variant was responsible for 85 total positive infections across several days as of July 8. As of July 15, the County was reporting a 7-day rolling average of 95 new COVID cases, up from 27 cases on the same scale one month earlier. County officials told the San Jose Spotlight that they continue to be concerned about the rise of the virus variants across the county and are “monitoring the situation closely”.
“The most important method to protect the community from the Delta variant is to continue to increase our vaccination rates,” a county spokesperson said to the Spotlight.
The most recent metrics show that 76% of the public are fully vaccinated in Santa Clara County and more than 82% have received at least one dose.