Wear a Mask in Public Indoor Spaces

The Lincoln County Board of Commissioners and Lincoln County Health and Human Services recommendation:

Wear a Mask in Public Indoor Spaces Regardless of Vaccination Status

(8.4.21) Considering the latest information about the DELTA variant of the coronavirus, Lincoln County Commissioners and its Public Health department are recommending that all individuals aged 5 and older resume wearing a mask in all indoor public spaces, even if vaccinated.

Points of consideration that support this recommendation:

• The DELTA variant is currently the main variant of COVID-19 in Oregon.
• This variant is 3 times more contagious than the previous iterations of the COVID-19 virus. This means that one person can infect up to 8 people compared to 2 to 2.5 people with previous variants. The Centers for Diseases Control (CDC) compares the transmissibility of this variant to the chickenpox.
• This variant also produces more severe disease in individuals who are infected with the virus.
• Vaccinated individuals can transmit the virus to others if they get infected.
• Vaccines are still the best prevention method against severe illness due to COVID-19, hospitalizations, and deaths
• Masks are the second-best known prevention method to curb the spread of COVID-19 in both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals

Points of consideration for getting vaccinated:

• Vaccination helps protect you.
• Vaccination protects those of us who can't get vaccinated (like kids under 12).
• Vaccination protects those of us for whom the vaccine does not work that well (for example, folks who are immunocompromised or folks who have cancer.
• Vaccinations stop the virus from mutating into a different strain and from possibly becoming more resistant to our vaccines.
• Vaccinations will help us go back to life without COVID.