L.A. moves to lift vaccine verification mandate at indoor businesses
Los Angeles City Council members took the first step Wednesday toward lifting vaccine verification requirements at many indoor businesses, the latest in a slew of rule relaxations as the Omicron surge steadily fades.
While not yet final, the move would have a sweeping effect in the City of Angels: removing the mandate that establishments such as restaurants and bars, hair salons, gyms and movie theaters screen whether their indoor patrons are vaccinated against COVID-19.
Under an ordinance that will be drafted and come back to the council for final approval at a future meeting, verifying whether indoor customers are vaccinated would be voluntary. Operators of major outdoor events in L.A. also would no longer need to check if attendees are vaccinated.
The council voted 12 to 0, without discussion, to draft an ordinance amending the city rules.
Opponents of the vaccination rule, including leaders of the Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County, had been pushing to roll back the mandate through a ballot measure. Angela McArdle, chair of the county party, said if the rule is repealed, her group would seek to prevent any such requirements from being reinstated in the future. Several people who phoned in to the Wednesday meeting argued that the L.A. rules were overbearing and discriminatory.
“We’re going to continue to fight, just to make sure that this never happens again,” Shawn Osborne, a member of the Libertarian Party, told the council before the Wednesday vote. “Thank you — and to hell with tyrants.”
Others have raised concerns about L.A. moving to drop the requirement. The city rules “forced people to be more responsible and take the virus seriously,” said Emily Dibiny, who heads the community health team for People Organized for Westside Renewal.
Dibiny said that when spring break arrives, cases could resurge, and “next thing you know, they’re going to say, ‘No, now it’s mandatory again.’ ”
L.A. City Council to consider easing vaccination verification mandate for restaurants, gyms, bars, movie theaters, hair salons and other businesses.
L.A.’s vaccine verification requirement has been in place since November. Collectively dubbed SafePassLA, the rules ranked among the most wide-ranging implemented statewide — applying to restaurants, gyms, performing arts theaters, music and concert venues, convention centers, museums, nail salons, tanning salons, bowling alleys, card rooms and arcades.
Supporters have touted the move as an important added layer of safety in indoor public places, where the risk of coronavirus transmission is generally higher.
A little more than a month after the rules went into effect, California and the nation were struck by a viral tsunami spawned by the hyper-infectious Omicron variant of the coronavirus. However, that wave crested in late January, and the numbers of daily coronavirus cases and hospitalized COVID-19 patients have since tumbled back to pre-surge levels. Down from a January peak of 42,000 coronavirus cases a day, L.A. County is averaging 1,200 cases a day, a level not seen since the beginning of December, just days after Omicron’s discovery was announced.
Under the ordinance, the verification requirement was to be enforced through tickets and an escalating series of fines, but officials said they would hold off on citations until February, instead focusing on education and outreach.
So far, no fines have been imposed: The Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, which has been charged with enforcing the city rules, said it had sent notices to six businesses urging them to correct violations of the city requirements, but had not issued any citations as of Wednesday.
One politician has argued that the city should also scrap another requirement imposed during the pandemic: the one that requires Los Angeles city workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or obtain an exemption.
Councilman Joe Buscaino, who said last week that he wanted to offer “a testing alternative,” introduced a motion Wednesday asking for city officials to report back on the feasibility and impacts of rescinding the vaccination requirement for city employees, saying that “much has changed” since it went into effect.
Health officials still recommend masks in indoor public settings, but school operators will be able to require masks or make them optional.
Given Omicron’s pronounced pullback, officials in L.A. and throughout the state have said conditions have improved enough that it makes sense to relax some preventive measures.
California has scrapped public indoor mask mandates in most locations for everyone regardless of whether they’ve been vaccinated, though health officials continue to strongly recommend residents wear masks. The state will also lift its indoor masking mandate at schools and child-care facilities after Friday night.
The California Department of Public Health still requires proof of vaccination or a recent negative test at indoor mega-events — those with more than 1,000 people, such as NBA games at L.A.’s Crypto.com Arena. Vaccination verification also is required for healthcare workers and employees at nursing homes.
And while masking is now largely optional, there remain select settings where face coverings are mandatory — such as while aboard public transportation, including planes, or in healthcare settings, nursing homes, homeless shelters, jails, prisons and emergency shelters.
The L.A. County Department of Public Health last week rescinded its own limited vaccination verification rule, which applied to indoor portions of bars, wineries, breweries, distilleries, nightclubs and lounges. County health officials also have lifted the requirement that attendees of outdoor mega-events with more than 10,000 attendees show they’re vaccinated or have recently tested negative for the coronavirus.
However, individual cities are allowed to have more-stringent requirements than the county’s, which is why L.A.’s rules have applied to far more businesses and why the City Council needs to take special action to lift them.
The case count is larger than the combined population of San Diego, Orange and Riverside counties, and equivalent to nearly 25% of Californians testing positive at some point in the past two-plus years.
Even if the city rule is revoked, businesses and venues can elect to continue screening patrons’ vaccination status if they want.
The other city in L.A. County with its own vaccine verification rule at indoor restaurants and gyms is West Hollywood. There has been no formal move to ease that requirement.
San Francisco health officials announced Wednesday that the city will lift on Friday its vaccination-or-test requirement to enter indoor restaurants, bars, gyms, clubs, theaters and other venues that serve food or drink. Berkeley made a similar announcement Wednesday, saying it’ll end its vaccine mandate for those settings Friday. Businesses can continue to require vaccine checks if they choose.
“With cases and hospitalizations continuing to fall and our high vaccination rate providing a strong defense against the virus, San Francisco is ready to further reduce COVID-19 restrictions and allow individuals to make their own decisions to protect themselves and their loved ones,” San Francisco health officer Dr. Susan Philip said in a statement.
The vaccination-or-test requirements “served their purpose in keeping these spaces as safe as possible for staff and patrons. Rolling it back is part of coming-out-of-crisis mode and learning to live with the virus,” Philip said.
Some doctors and public health experts are continuing to take COVID-19 precautions that go above and beyond the new minimum mandates.
San Francisco has a “moderate” level of coronavirus transmission, with a case rate of 37 new coronavirus cases for every 100,000 residents over the last week as of Wednesday afternoon, according to The Times’ coronavirus tracker. That’s about half the rate of L.A. County, which is reporting 76 cases a week for every 100,000 residents — a “substantial” level of transmission.
About 71% of L.A. County residents of all ages are considered fully vaccinated, while in San Francisco 83% of residents are fully vaccinated, according to their respective health departments.
The Bay Area’s third-most populous county, Contra Costa, lifted its vaccine-or-test requirement in February after 80% of its residents were fully vaccinated.
Oakland has its own vaccine verification requirement for businesses such as indoor restaurants and gyms. Berkeley will retain an order requiring up-to-date vaccinations, including boosters if eligible, for workers in child-care facilities.
In an interview Friday, L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer — who backed vaccine verification rules in certain businesses last fall — said it was reasonable now to lift vaccine verification requirements in places like bars, given the pandemic’s trajectory.
Ferrer said that it made sense to impose a vaccine requirement for businesses in high-risk environments when coronavirus case rates were high, and that it makes sense to relax them now that case rates have fallen. Lifting those rules is “a recognition that we’re in a different place today than we’ve been before,” Ferrer said.
Dr. Robert Kim-Farley, a UCLA epidemiologist and infectious-disease expert, agreed. He noted that hospitals are no longer in a position of being potentially overwhelmed, and the rollout of COVID-19 drugs such as Paxlovid — still in limited supply — will further reduce the risk of hospitalization.
And while it’s still important to encourage vaccinations, “we’re probably getting down to a core of people that are not going to be swayed about vaccination,” Kim-Farley said.
Ferrer also said it’s still necessary to require municipal employees who work with vulnerable people — such as police officers, sheriff’s deputies and firefighters — to be vaccinated.
“If you’re in the business of supporting the most vulnerable people in the county, then it makes sense for people to be fully vaccinated, especially during a pandemic,” Ferrer said. With COVID-19 still more deadly than the flu, “I think with this higher mortality, and especially with all of the vulnerability that people can experience, I just think we’re in a place where it still makes sense to get vaccinated.”
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