Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg wants masks to be mandatory throughout the county during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Mayor made his comments about early into a Monday night Facebook Live session for his followers. The comments were a reaction to Governor Gavin Newsom's comments about the state's plan for partially reopening later this week.
Mayor Steinberg added that he and others with the City of Sacramento are working closely with their county partners with a goal of opening more businesses sooner rather than later, and that will require physical distancing to continue. That practice helped give the Sacramento region the distinction of having the fewest viral infections per capita among large metropolitan areas in the country, according to Steinberg. But he also believes the added layer of protection provided by masks is even more important.
"I'm going to call on our county health officers to change that order, the mask issue, from voluntary to mandatory," said Steinberg. He wants the timing of the mandatory requirement to match the date when the state begins to ease restrictions meant to stop the spread of the virus. "If that's Friday, if that's Monday, if that's next week, I believe that a mandatory mask requirement ought to accompany that opening up because it will allow us to open up faster."
The Mayor said an order to wear masks in public will allow the community to not only open up but also avoid a spike in coronavirus infections that could lead to a return to a strict statewide stay-at-home order which could last much longer.