I posted the above-referenced article not so much for the "workplace" aspect, but for what it might foretell about the prospects of full stadiums of mask-less football fans this fall.
I'm still unsure of whether or not SoFi Stadium is considered to be an indoor or outdoor venue, but for the purposes of this post...let's assume it's considered to be indoors. Right now, when I watch indoor sporting events on TV (in particular, the NBA), it appears that most venues are only allowing a minimal amount of fans to be in attendance. As a matter of fact, it was noted in last night's Laker/Warrior game that Staples Center (a venue that can seat 20K fans) was able to have its most fans of the season (6K) due to opening up an entire section to those who demonstrate proof of full vaccination. I don't know if these fans were required to wear masks, though.
But when you look at how California is trending with its vaccination efforts (and the resulting decrease in Covid cases), I'm wondering if, by the time the NFL season rolls around:
1) indoor stadium capacity restrictions will be lifted;
2) indoor mask requirements will be lifted; and,
3) proof of vaccination will not be necessary for 1 and 2.
The only data I could find (published in 2015) indicated that over 95% of NFL fans that actually attend games are 18+ years old. Not sure if that demographic has changed much since then.
In California, over 2/3 of it's population (age 12+ years old) have been at least partially vaccinated (47.5% fully). In Los Angeles Co. (where SoFi Stadium is located), 59.3% of its residents (age 16+ years old) have been partially vaccinated (43.5% fully). Note: the LA County numbers were as of 5/9/21.
In relation to the topic of potential guidance to businesses looking to bring their workforces back into the office, I found this particular piece of the article to be potentially relevant to bringing fans back into indoor stadiums without masks:
Quote
Some infectious diseases experts suggested the proposed relaxation in California’s workplaces could be loosened further.
They pointed out that fully vaccinated people are highly protected from the coronavirus, even when in close contact with unvaccinated people. In the rare instance that a vaccinated person gets infected anyway, chances are they will either show no symptoms or have very mild symptoms, and they are unlikely to transmit the virus to other people.
“I feel that they are trying to be conservative,” said Dr. Robert Kim-Farley, a medical epidemiologist and infectious diseases expert at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. “I think it’s very likely that the board, as we go out further and have more and more people vaccinated and go to extremely low levels of disease circulating in the population, I would anticipate that they would revisit these recommendations.”
Importantly, the chances people today in California are likely to get infected are far lower than they were at the height of the pandemic. California already has one of the lowest daily coronavirus case rates in the nation. And so, Dr. Monica Gandhi, infectious diseases expert at UC San Francisco, said as a vaccinated person, while she wouldn’t be unmasked in a densely packed crowd in a place with a high case rate, she would feel fine doing so in San Francisco, which has a very low prevalence of the virus.
Notably, scientists in the U.K. — buoyed by the nation’s high rate of vaccination — decided to embark on an unusual experiment in Liverpool, where they allowed thousands of people who tested negative for the virus to attend a crowded music festival with no masks or physical distancing.
More than two weeks later, “they saw no uptick in cases in Liverpool,” Gandhi said.
That’s why, Gandhi said, officials should be thinking about how to change rules for when there are vaccinated and unvaccinated workers in the same room. Gandhi said one idea is to drop mask mandates once a certain percentage of residents has received at least one dose of vaccine — like 70% — and the daily per capita number of coronavirus cases has fallen to, say, between 2 and 3 cases per 100,000 residents.
So, I've already listed what the vaccination percentages are (today) for the state and LA County. Even with vaccination rates declining, though, it's pretty clear that the state will hit the 70% figure that Dr. Gandhi proposed shortly - maybe even by the end of June. I suspect that LA County will take a little longer, but not that much longer to hit that number.
Also, when taking into account the Covid case numbers...overall, California is currently seeing 3 new coronavirus cases daily per 100K (7-day average). In Los Angeles, it's at 2 new cases.
This is quite a turnaround for the state and county and proves without a doubt that the vaccines are working (and safe).
And this is something for anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers (likely the same people and likely representing ~15-20% of the state population) to get on board with. If: A) they don't want government tyrants infringing upon their liberty to become infected (or to infect others) with Covid by not wearing masks; and/or B ) they don't want to be injected with tiny microchips for Bill Gates to track them...they need to stop protesting outside of elementary schools and county board meetings and begin to encourage others to get vaccinated. The sooner the population reaches herd immunity...the sooner they can have their freedom restored to catch the latest Covid variant and/or only be tracked by Tim Cook and Ki Nam Kim.
And the sooner we can ALL return to enjoy cheering for the Rams (en mass) in person.