As Los Angeles County continues barreling toward another indoor mask mandate, one city in the jurisdiction has voted unanimously not to enforce another edict from now-embattled county public health officials if a mandate is issued: Beverly Hills.
According to a release from the City of Beverly Hills, "[a] potential new health order by LA County that could require indoor masking will not be enforced by City of Beverly Hills staff" after the city council issued a unanimous directive on Monday night after Mayor Lili Bosse instructed them to take up the matter.
As the city explains, they would be "included in any new health order issued, but may or may not choose to utilize staff resources to enforce it." And they've chosen not to.
City of Beverly Hills Will Not Implement Potential New LA County Health Order Using City Enforcement: https://t.co/nzVp3Fds93 pic.twitter.com/QsINk4wS15
— Lili Bosse (@LiliBosse1) July 26, 2022
"I feel it is our job to lead and I support the power of choice," said Mayor Bosse. "Our job is to be proactive and public about what we believe. This is a united City Council and community that cares about health. We are not where we were in 2020, and now we need to move forward as a community and be part of the solution," she explained.
Los Angeles County has, for two weeks in a row, seen COVID cases rise to the point of being ranked "high" by the CDC, meaning an indoor mask mandate could be revived on Thursday and take effect on Friday unless data shows a decrease in cases and hospitalizations. In Beverly Hills, though, "LACDPH would responsible for enforcement of any new order" as the city won't use resources to do so themselves.
In addition to the City of Beverly Hills, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger released a statement opposing a return to mandated universal indoor masking on Monday according to CBS Los Angeles:
"I have not seen any empirical data that conclusively shows that masking mandates make a difference in decreasing or stopping COVID-19 transmission rates," Barger wrote. "An analysis of Alameda County's June 2022 masking mandate, in fact, concluded it had no significant impact in comparison to its surrounding counties that did not impose a masking mandate. Alameda County dropped this mandate after only three weeks."