As most California counties end COVID mask mandates, here’s why some are keeping them

As most California counties end COVID mask mandates, here’s why some are keeping them

Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist and [associate] public health professor at the University of California, Irvine, calls himself a “mask freak” who wears one whenever he’s indoors other than in his own home. They’re required at his workplace, a rule he supports. But Noymer is in favor of the state lifting its universal indoor mandate with some “caveats and asterisks.” “I’d like people to mask,” he said. “But I think there are issues strategically with having mandates that are starting to abrade people.” He predicted another wave this calendar year, “probably sometime in December,” when masking “will genuinely be needed again.”