California Lifts State’s COVID Mandates on Health Care Facilities and Providers

A lab technician works in the Emergency Department at Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley, Calif., on March 11, 2022. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

California has lifted all government-enforced COVID protocols, with the state no longer requiring medical professionals to wear masks, allowing local management to apply their own protocols. The lifting of mandates came into effect on April 3.

Californians can be mask free inside any health care setting, including high-risk locations, elderly care centers, places that serve people experiencing homelessness, and correctional facilities, as stated by the new guidelines.

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) initially made the announcement in March 2023 and detailed their updated COVID guidelines.

According to the new guidelines, health care workers are no longer required to get vaccinated if they choose not to.

Hundreds of parents and students gather in front of the Chino Valley Unified School District to protest California Gov. Gavin Newsom's decision to keep mask mandate at K–12 schools on Feb. 15, 2022. (Linda Jiang/The Epoch Times)

“We stand before Californians today with a humble message of thanks for taking the hard steps to help manage COVID-19, and with an ongoing commitment to be prepared for what comes next,” CDPH Director and State Public Health Officer Dr. Tomás Aragón said in a statement at the time.

Aragón praised Californians for taking seriously the COVID protocols designed to help ease the spread of COVID throughout the state.

“Our communities did a lot of the hard work by getting vaccinated and boosted, staying home and testing when sick, requesting treatments when positive, and masking to slow the spread. With these critical actions and a lot of patience and persistence, we have now reached a point where we can update some of the COVID-19 guidance to continue to balance prevention and adapting to living with COVID-19,” Aragón added.

California became the first state to mandate masks when the pandemic first broke out in March 2020.

“The State of California is deploying every level of government to help identify cases and slow the spread of this coronavirus,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement at the time. “This emergency proclamation will help the state further prepare our communities and our health care system in the event it spreads more broadly.”

In an effort to lead the pack, Newsom immediately issued a stay-at-home order that lasted months, closing all business and in-person classes, along with enforcing the mask mandates. Many Californians couldn’t interact with other people or enter a building without a face covering.

Californians became frustrated with how long the mandate lasted and pushed against Newsom’s orders, especially parents who protested against the school mask mandate.

Dr. Larry Kociolek, a pediatric infectious diseases physician and researcher at Northwestern University, reassured parents that face masks were necessary to protect children at school.

“With the exception of vaccination, masking is the most effective risk mitigation strategy for schools,” Kociolek told the Los Angeles Times at the time. “Lifting that—particularly in areas with substantial or high transmission of COVID-19—will undoubtedly result in more transmission in schools.”

Newsom finally announced the end of the COVID-19 state of emergency last year in October.

“The State of Emergency was an effective and necessary tool that we utilized to protect our state, and we wouldn’t have gotten to this point without it,” Newsom said in a statement. “With the operational preparedness that we’ve built up and the measures that we’ll continue to employ moving forward, California is ready to phase out this tool.”

Health departments and individual health care facilities will be allowed to implement their plans in accordance with their personalized needs in response to local COVID outbreaks and containment.

In March 2022, California announced the release of the state’s SMARTER Plan.

Individuals will now be in control of continuing to abide by COVID guidelines without the strict protocols in place. It will be the responsibility of community members to help keep those who are most at risk for COVID protected from catching the virus.

These steps included vaccine shots to stay protected, properly wearing masks to slow the spread COVID and other viruses, awareness of how COVID is evolving, readiness to stay prepared for any new updates, continued testing, educational safety for in-person learning, and improving treatments for COVID, according to the states previous COVID plan.

Andrew Noymer, an associate professor at the University of California–Irving’s Program in Public Health, agrees with allowing people to be mask free in certain instances.

“At this point in the pandemic, I don’t feel a masking mandate is justified for grocery stores, laundromats, post offices, etc. People should make their own decision about whether to mask or not,” Noymer said in a phone interview.

“But, health care settings should continue to productively maintain a masking mandate, because they have a high concentration of immune-compromised people and people coming in to seek treatment for COVID,” Noymer added.