A new requirement that masks be worn indoors in Los Angeles County went into effect at midnight on Saturday night. But the local sheriff has no plans to enforce it. “Forcing the vaccinated and those who already contracted Covid-19 to wear masks indoors is not backed by science,” Sheriff Alex Villanueva wrote in a statement posted on his department’s website on Friday. The department “will not expend our limited resources and instead ask for voluntary compliance,” the statement continued. County public health officials had been urging residents for weeks to wear masks indoors as the highly contagious Delta variant spread in the state, as it is doing across the country.

Source: New York Times July 18, 2021 13:58 UTC