California county recommends masking up amid Covid-positive wastewater tests
A Northern California county is inexplicably experiencing an alleged uptick in late-summer Covid virus water concentration, prompting officials to encourage Californians to mask up
by Summer Lane | September 5, 2025
During the Covid pandemic, Americans were encouraged to wear masks indoors and, sometimes, even outdoors, to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus, and in some states like California, indoor mask mandates remained in place for many months.
Despite conflicting science on whether masking alone actually helps prevent the spread of Covid, one Northern California county is encouraging residents to mask up indoors to protect themselves and others from contracting the virus, following a wastewater test indicating high levels of the virus in the region.
Yolo County Health and Human Services Agency has advised residents, particularly in the West Sacramento region, to “take extra precautions” amid wastewater testing that showed high levels of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in both Sacramento and West Sacramento.
“Yolo County’s Health Officer, Dr. Aimee Sisson, recommends that everybody over age 2 years old, wear a mask around others in indoor public spaces when wastewater levels of SARS-CoV-2 are high,” the agency said in a press release.
Sisson described the situation as a “summer COVID wave” and said that West Sacramento residents, especially, should wear masks indoors, noting that the N95, KN95 and KF94 masks “continues to provide strong protection.”
According to Newsweek, wastewater testing also registered high for other California areas as well, including Turlock, San Jose, Merced, Oceanside San Francisco, Novato, and Santa Cruz.
In California, many Covid-era restrictions and mandates about masking and vaccines did not end until 2023. That same year, California’s attempt to mandate Covid vaccinations for children attending school was dropped due to widespread unpopularity.
Since then, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced this spring that the CDC would remove the recommendation for the Covid vaccine from the immunization schedule for healthy pregnant women and children.
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