Last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put out a statement that lowered mask mandates for citizens who have been fully vaccinated. The health officials released a new mask guideline for outdoor activities involving fully vaccinated people.

The new recommendations describe that people who have been fully vaccinated do not have to wear a mask outdoors in public if they are by themselves or away from large crowds. This new mandate does express that the masks must stay on in large groups, even if a person has been vaccinated.

This announcement is a positive one for sure, as it follows the newfound vaccine eligibility of all Americans 16 years and older. Governor Gavin Newsom reacted to the news on April 27th by tweeting, “CA will be aligning with the new CDC guidelines. If you’re fully vaccinated, outdoors, and not in large crowds — you do not need to wear a mask. We’ve administered 29+ million vaccines and have the lowest positivity rate and case rate in the nation.”

This reaction from the Governor comes after the announcement of his June 15 goal to open the state of California officially back up to “normal”. The two criteria that were given for a June 15 reopen are sufficient vaccine supply for all eligible Californians and stable, low hospitalization rates. As of now, COVID-19 cases are going down, counties are progressing in the colored tiers assigned by the CDC and vaccinations are being distributed to all who request them.

In an article by Marissa Wenzke, a writer for KTLA, she explains, “…the state has a positivity rate of 1.2% and 33 new daily cases in every 100,000 people. By comparison, the total nationwide case rate is 116.4 cases per 100,000 people in the US according to the CDC database.”

With fully vaccinated people being allowed to walk outside without a mask on, many health officials are worried that people who are unvaccinated or even 50% vaccinated will do the same. Health officials across the state have made it clear to citizens who are not fully vaccinated, must still wear masks at all times because it could put the rest of the population at risk and most of the state is not fully vaccinated yet.

This news is all progress for what is to come for Fall 2021 at Sonoma State. Last week, the CSU system announced that all students who plan on attending in person classes must be fully vaccinated by the start of the next semester, in the event that the vaccines get approved by the FDA.

Sean Barron, a Junior Business Marketing major at SSU communicated his excitement about the new mask mandate, “I personally am happy with the new mask mandate. This is a positive step in the right direction. I really hope that the school will be able to allow us students to sit in class with no masks on as well because everyone will be fully vaccinated by then.”

The Sonoma State campus has slowly been coming back to normal and with the new mask mandate across the state, the school will continue to look more and more like it has in the past.  Continuing to follow whatever CDC health guidelines are needed to be able to come back to campus in full.

To follow all CDC guidelines and updates lookup CDC health COVID-19 for any more information and recommendations to learn more.