Santa Barbara County extends indoor mask mandate
Santa Barbara County Public Health has extended its indoor mask mandate, which requires everyone to wear face coverings indoors in public settings regardless of vaccination status.
The order is in effect until at least 5 p.m. on December 4, or until it is extended, modified or cancelled.
According to public health officials, the county has a case rate of 10 per 100,000 and a test positivity rate of 2.8%. That categorizes the county’s transmission level as “Substantial” per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) standards.
The CDC recommends fully vaccinated people wear face coverings in public indoor settings in areas with transmission rates in the “Substantial” and “High” categories.
In order for the county to consider rescinding the mandate, the county case rate has to be 6 cases per 100,000 people or lower for two consecutive weeks, which would put the county in the “Low” transmission category.
County Health Officer Dr. Henning Ansorg said in a press release that the county is “heading in the right direction” as case rates continue to decrease and vaccinations increase, but also warned that the holiday season has the potential to cause a surge in cases and hospitalizations.
More information is available at publichealthsbc.org.
For information on San Luis Obispo County, which also has an indoor mask mandate, visit readyslo.org.
California trucking expert discusses driver shortage and supply chain issues
As efforts are made to resolve the backlog of container ships at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, there’s increased attention on where some goods will go next: into a truck.
And there are problems there, too. Doctor Thomas O’Brien is at Cal State Long Beach and Executive Director of the Center for International Trade and Transportation.
O'Brien said each link in the supply chain is connected.
“If you get the goods off of the vessel, is there a place to store them at the docks? If there’s a place to store them at the docks, is there a truck driver to move them off the docks? If there’s a truck driver, is there a chassis to move them? And if there’s a chassis, is there a place to take it, a warehousing and distribution center?” O'Brien said.
O’Brien said, from a port’s perspective, there needs to be a holistic approach to the supply chain to solve the problem.
This story came to us from CapRadio News.
