Pasadena To Require Vaccines For Employees, Face Masks Indoors
PASADENA (CBSLA) — Pasadena will soon require face coverings indoors regardless of vaccine status as COVID cases spike across Los Angeles County. The city is also working on a policy that would require its city employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
"While Pasadena's case rates were lower than Los Angeles County's rate last week, weekend case rates continued to climb," Lisa Derderian, city spokesperson, said. "Pasadena now meets the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]'s definition of 'substantial transmission' of COVID-19."
The Pasadena Department of Public Health was said to be finalizing the updated public health order that is expected to be posted this week. The order will require face masks indoors in both public and business settings, regardless of vaccination status.
"We've also detected the Delta variant in multiple households unrelated to each other so we know it's really driving our spread," said Pasadena Public Health Director Dr. Ying-Ying Goh.
In addition, Derderian said the city manager was working on an implementation order to mandate that all city employees get vaccinated.
"Currently, [there are] approximately 60% of employees who attested to being vaccinated," she said. "Although, with an upward trend in positive cases and the new variant, a mandatory policy is the right thing to do to protect employees who at times spend more hours at work [than] home."
Derderian said the city would be the first in Southern California to initiate the policy and follows a similar announcement from the University of California system.
"Initially, we were waiting for Food and Drug Administration approval for at least one of the COVID vaccinations," said Derderian. "But at this point that may be a while so want to move forward once we can formalize this policy."
Earlier Monday, Ventura County strongly recommended residents wear masks indoors.
