The latest recommendations from Santa Barbara, Monterey, Napa, San Benito, Santa Cruz and Ventura raise to 17 the number of counties now asking even fully vaccinated individuals to wear face coverings as a precaution while inside places like grocery stores, movie theaters and retail outlets…

None of the five latest counties to recommend indoor masking have recorded sky-high coronavirus case counts. But most have reported an increase in average daily infections from a month ago, according to data compiled by The Times.

Santa Barbara County, for instance, has reported an average of about 29 new coronavirus cases per day over the last week — a relatively low number compared with previous waves, but nearly six times as high as the level in mid-June.

Over the last week, California has reported an average of 3,671 new cases per day. That’s more than quadruple the number from a month ago, though still only a fraction of what the state was reporting during the height of the fall-and-winter surge.