Airports and nursing homes are two of the only workplaces still subject to an indoor mask mandate in the county. Mask mandates are no silver bullet, particularly at a time when much of the public has largely abandoned COVID precautions and may simply ignore the mandate. But tightly fit high-filtration face masks like N95s remain one of the best ways to prevent catching or spreading COVID in any environment. Like in countless other places around the U.S., public health officials in L.A. County have been strongly recommending wearing masks in indoor public spaces for a while, but “virtually nobody did it,” a county supervisor commented last week. There’s no question a mask mandate would have a much larger impact, but county officials don’t believe one is necessary until the wave appears to be threatening hospitals.

Hopefully, California’s projections are correct and the state’s BA.5 hospitalization surge will have peaked by the beginning of August. On Thursday, nine other U.S. counties with populations of more than one million people were moved into the high risk category per the CDC’s community level ratings. How they and the rest of the country fares — and how and when this wave may end — remains to be seen.