Monday: As Los Angeles County’s indoor mask requirement took effect, there was eager acceptance and stubborn refusal, mild grumbling and blurted-out outrage.
Good morning.
At the Hollywood Bowl on Sunday, where the jazz musician Kamasi Washington was headlining, some in the crowd were wearing masks, even though they were not required to do so.
With Covid-19 cases on the uptick again, Los Angeles County on Sunday became the first major county in the nation to revert to requiring masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status. Those who were masked at the Hollywood Bowl were being extra cautious — the new mandate did not apply at outdoor concerts or in any other outdoor spaces.
Thirty miles away, the scene was far different at a sports bar in Santa Clarita, in northwestern Los Angeles County. At one moment on Sunday afternoon, not a soul could be seen wearing a mask inside, employee and patron alike. Two men drinking beer at an outdoor table said they were not even aware the rules had changed.
One county. Two of a multitude of reactions.
The county, America’s most populous, is a sprawling, freeway-linked galaxy of 88 cities and 10,039,107 residents. It is ultrawealthy and ultra-poor, mega-urban and mega-suburban.
In parts of liberal Los Angeles, the new requirements for masks were applauded as a wise course of action. In parts of conservative Los Angeles, the rules were a nuisance that some ignored, illustrating the problem for health officials in rolling back a piece of the state’s celebratory reopening in a county where a kind of sun-kissed cacophony is a way of life.
On Sunday morning in Beverly Hills, there were masks on many faces as people streamed into cafes, patisseries and brunch spots. To some, enforcement was lax.
“I noticed a few people that were not wearing masks,” Maritza Alvarado said as she sat outside Urth Caffé with her niece, both of whom said they were vaccinated, and who were sipping pink banana strawberry smoothies. “The people who have not been vaccinated are preventing us from living our lives.”
As other counties statewide are now recommending mask-wearing indoors and debating whether to follow the lead of Los Angeles County officials by making the recommendation mandatory, the varying reactions to the mandate could be a sign of things to come in parts of California.
At a hardware store in Agoura Hills near the Ventura County line, three customers entering separately in bare faces were offered disposable masks by workers in the span of 20 minutes. One of the three — a bearded veteran buying a single light bulb — put the mask on, but he was not happy about it.
“The emperor wants us to have masks on again,” the man said.
It was an apparent reference to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall election in September — and who had nothing to do with the Los Angeles County mandate. The decision was a local one, made by the leaders of the county’s Department of Public Health, out of concern for the highly transmissible Delta variant, which has led to a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in recent days. California gives counties the option to impose tighter restrictions locally than the state requires.
As the man’s comment illustrated, some in the county are eager to blame Newsom, and the jumble of shifting recommendations and requirements at the local, state and federal level has made it easy to do so. Confusion and anger were evident on Sunday over the mandate, as well as over the divide between the vaccinated and unvaccinated.
Carol Hopkins, a server at the Original Saugus Cafe in Santa Clarita, waited on tables of patrons escaping the 100-degree heat outside.
Hopkins, who is vaccinated and wore a black mask, said it was unfair that others in Santa Clarita — one of the most conservative cities in Los Angeles County — had refused to get vaccinated, making life more difficult for hospitality workers like herself.
“Why,” she said, “do I need to wear a damn mask?”
Michelle O’Donnell contributed reporting.
Here’s what else to know today
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Two Republican members of Congress and allies of former President Donald J. Trump, Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, held a protest outside Riverside City Hall on Saturday after three Southern California venues canceled their America First rally, The Los Angeles Times reports.
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In Napa Valley, the climate crisis has reached a point where some growers are spraying sunscreen on grapes to prevent roasting, while others are irrigating with disinfected toilet water because normal water sources have run dry.
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A series of attacks on older Asian men and women have shocked San Francisco, a city with one of the largest Asian American populations in the U.S. But the question of what to do about the violence has become a source of division.
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The Desert Sun reports that Palm Springs received the most rain on Sunday that it has had in nearly six months. May had been the driest month in the area this year, with no recorded rain.
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The Dixie fire in Northern California has doubled in size over the past two days, growing to 18,702 acres with 15 percent containment, The Mercury News reports. The largest wildfire in the country, the Bootleg fire in southern Oregon, grew by more than 476 square miles on Sunday.
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Follow all of The Times’s heat wave and wildfire coverage here.
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More than 80 people filed statements of intent to challenge Gov. Gavin Newsom in the recall election. But only 41 were included on a new list released by state officials. Not everyone who filed a statement of intent followed through on the remaining steps, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
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Mat George, co-host of the podcast “She Rates Dogs,” known for his humorous takes on dating, pop culture and his identity as a gay man, was struck and killed by a car as he crossed a Los Angeles street on Saturday. The Los Angeles Police Department said it was a hit-and-run.
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After a year’s delay, the Tokyo Summer Olympics are set to proceed. But the circumstances will be most unusual. Here’s what we know about the Games.
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The online influencer culture is starting to draw serious interest from big venture capital firms. But Silicon Valley appears far more interested in the digital tools used by the content creators than investing directly in the creators themselves.
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