Cathedral City’s indoor mask order to end Friday at midnight

Cathedral City councilmembers decided to allow the city's indoor mask order to expire Friday at midnight.

This will remove the local indoor mask requirement that mandated all persons to wear a mask indoors regardless of their vaccination status and revert instead to State of California guidelines for wearing masks indoors. 

According to the city, the main reasons behind the decision were that "more residents are increasingly being vaccinated and the likelihood of serious illness, hospitalizations, or deaths was significantly lower, especially in comparison to last year’s numbers at this time."

The State of California’s masks guidelines are the following:

Everyone is required to wear masks in the following settings:
• Public transit
• Healthcare settings (including long term care facilities)
• Adult and senior care facilities
• Indoors in K-12 schools, childcare, and other youth settings
• State and local correctional facilities and detention centers
• Homeless shelters, emergency shelters, and cooling centers

Masks are required for unvaccinated people and recommended for everyone in indoor public places, like:
• Retail
• Restaurants
• Theaters
• Family entertainment centers
• Meetings
• State and local government offices that serve the public

Back in September, the city voted to remove proof of vaccination or negative COVID test for indoor dining.