The discovery of the omicron coronavirus variant in the Bay Area could deal a setback to the progress the Bay Area region has made over the past few weeks in tamping down infections and moving toward loosened restrictions.
Officials in San Francisco, where the first case of the new, highly transmissible variant in the country was confirmed on Wednesday — in a vaccinated traveler who returned to the city after a trip to South Africa — said all mitigation measures, including the universal indoor mask mandate, will stay in place indefinitely.
“I’ve had a lot of requests for when we can loosen, and we were starting to look at that, but for now, we’re going to hold,” said Dr. Susan Philip, the San Francisco health officer, in an interview. “We’re not going to loosen anything at this moment.”
Other county health departments in the region are taking a wait-and-see approach with the variant before modifying the current COVID-19 prevention strategies or clamping down further.
“We’re confident in our monitoring systems and we’re watching closely,” said Dr. Matthew Willis, health officer for Marin County, the first in the region to lift the indoor mask mandate. “We have several policy levers still available to us if needed, including a mask mandate, proof of vaccination to enter restaurants and bars, and mandatory vaccination policies in workplaces.”
He said that while the county’s case and hospitalization rates have been stable through November, “more restrictive policies” could be triggered if county officials see more serious outcomes as a result of omicron.
The omicron variant is still surrounded by many unknowns. Scientists around the world are working rapidly to determine if it is more contagious than previous mutations of the virus, as early reports from southern Africa indicate. They are also not certain whether it will make people more seriously ill, or if it can evade the current vaccines.
“We’re waiting for more information,” said Dr. Sundari Mase, Sonoma County’s health officer. “We’re not really sure what the impact is going to be.”
Bay Area county health departments are urging residents to get vaccinated and boosted as soon as possible.
The person infected with omicron, who had had two full doses of the Moderna vaccine and was not yet due for a booster shot, had a mild illness, California officials said.
At this time, there are no planned changes to the regional health order issued in August that includes an indoor mask mandate for all residents in eight of the nine Bay Area counties. (Solano County was the sole county to not issue a new masking order, and Marin dropped its mask mandate under the criteria outlined by government officials.)
The criteria counties would have to meet in order to drop the mandates includes vaccinating 80% of their total population, maintaining “moderate” disease transmission as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for three weeks, and reporting consistently low COVID hospitalizations.
Contra Costa, San Mateo and Alameda county officials said they are monitoring the situation before making any changes to that.
“We’re following all these metrics. As far as how this variant could affect that? We’re not sure,” said Mase. “It’s going to take a little more time.”
Chronicle staff writer Erin Allday contributed to this story.
Aidin Vaziri is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: avaziri@sfchronicle.com