California Reissues Statewide Mask Mandate

California has decided to reimpose its statewide mask mandate after claiming 18 cases of the Omicran variant of COVID-19 have been discovered.

The new mask mandate applies to everyone, regardless of vaccination status. Whatever the original purpose of the vaccination was supposed to be, it sure hasn't seemed to slow down the spread of the virus or its variants.

The latest mask mandate will go into effect Wednesday and run through at least Jan. 15. "More restrictions will be introduced for those who are unvaccinated, with added requirements for those individuals to attend large gatherings such as concerts and sporting events,” Michael Lee of Fox News wrote.

That's not all. Catherine Ho of the San Francisco Chronicle reported the following:

"The state will also require people attending mega-events of 1,000 people or more that don’t require vaccination to show proof of a negative test taken within one day for an antigen test, and within two days for a PCR test. The previous window was 72 hours.

"And it will recommend that travelers returning to California get tested three to five days after arrival."

Those at indoor dining venues, however, will be allowed to remove masks when seated and ordering food.

“This is a critical time,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly. “We have a tool we know has worked and can work. We are proactively putting this tool of universal indoor masking in place to ensure we get through a time of joy and hope without a darker cloud of despair. Californians have done this before, and we believe we can do it again.”

“We know that there’s going to be people who don’t necessarily agree with this, who are tired, who aren’t going to mask. We hope that those are few and far between, that most people see the purpose of doing this over the next month as something to protect them and their communities during a very tough time.”

California's statewide mask mandate was actually the second issued Monday. New York also put one in place that will also last until Jan. 15.