Pasadena's Indoor Mask Order Kicks In Thursday

PASADENA, CA — Masks will once again be required indoors in Pasadena in any public setting or business beginning Thursday, city officials announced.

The indoor mask mandate is effective at 12:01 a.m., with the face coverings required regardless of a person’s vaccination status. The reintroduction of the mandate was prompted by a rise in coronavirus cases across the Southland following California’s rollback of COVID-19 safety measures in June, Pasadena officials said in a statement.

Los Angeles County reintroduced its own indoor mask mandate last week.

Places where face masks will be required include the following.

• Offices.
• Retail spaces.
• Grocery stores.
• Restaurants, bars and breweries when not eating or drinking.
• Movie theaters.
• Gyms and fitness centers.
• Government offices.

Since the state’s rollback, Pasadena’s daily case rate has shot up by 586 percent and reached the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “substantial transmission” level for community transmission, officials said.

“In Los Angeles County where a large proportion of the people who work, visit, or patronize businesses in Pasadena reside, the rate of COVID-19 cases has increased to the 'high transmission' level, introducing even greater risk of transmission in Pasadena,” city spokesperson Lisa Derderian said in a statement. “Hospitalizations from COVID-19 both locally and throughout Los Angeles County have more than doubled.”

Pasadena has a vaccination rate of 80 percent, and nearly all new and current cases of the virus have appeared in unvaccinated people, including children too young to get a vaccine, according to Pasadena Public Health Department Director Ying-Ying Goh.

A 65-year-old unvaccinated man this month became the city’s first COVID-19 related death in nearly 100 days. The man had underlying health conditions and contracted the virus from an unvaccinated member of his household, according to the health department.

Cases of the more transmissible delta variant of the virus have also been on the rise in the city after six residents tested positive for it earlier this month, Derderian said. The six people were not connected and lived in households that had a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

"Now is the time for anyone who is not yet vaccinated to get fully vaccinated. Help connect friends and family who are not yet vaccinated to a vaccine opportunity as soon as possible," Goh said in a previous statement. "Current vaccines are effective in protecting against the Delta variant," she added.

In addition to reintroducing an indoor mask mandate, Pasadena will soon become the first city in Southern California to require all its government employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Details on how the city will implement its vaccination mandate are still being worked out, according to Pasadena City Manager Steven Mermell.