The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is set on Tuesday to recommend masks for vaccinated people indoors under certain circumstances.

“Federal officials met on Sunday night to review new evidence that may have prompted the reversal,” the report continued. “The new guidance would mark a sharp turnabout from the agency’s position since May that vaccinated people do not need to wear masks in most indoor spaces.

New cases of COVID-19 are popping up in San Francisco and elsewhere in the Bay Area in what local media is calling “clearly a fourth wave of the pandemic”, and everyone is clearly anxious and exhausted.

The latest surge in new cases arrived swiftly over the last two weeks, with the numbers in San Francisco still fairly low in the first days of July. The city was averaging 12.6 new cases per day in the month of June, and that rose to an average of 39 per day in the week after the July Fourth holiday. Now, SF’s seven-day average, as of Sunday (with a couple of days of delay in the health department’s reporting of numbers), was 147 new cases per day. 218 new infections were tallied in SF on Sunday alone, with 196 the previous day, which compares to days in mid-January when we were in the midst of the winter surge. July 20 also saw 215 new cases.

There has not been a day with over 200 new cases in San Francisco since the first week of February.

The number of hospitalized COVID patients has also risen sharply in SF in the last two weeks, rising from 24 on July 1 to 61 as of Saturday, according to state data.

UCSF’s Dr. Bob Wachter tweeted a lengthy thread Sunday about the current surge and the precautions he plans to take. He notes that everything they are seeing at UCSF points to the ongoing efficacy of the vaccines, but now 77% of cases they are seeing through routine testing of many patients are among the vaccinated, the chances of encountering the virus in public are much higher in SF now than a month ago. Based on internal data about asymptomatic cases, Wachter says you now have a 1 in 50 chance of encountering an asymptomatic COVID infection while out in the city, compared to about 1 in 1000 back in June.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday that his state will be the first in the nation to impose a vaccine mandate on state employees and healthcare workers, requiring they show proof of vaccination or submit to regular tests.

California will also be requiring health care settings to verify that workers are fully vaccinated or tested regularly. Unvaccinated workers will be subject to at least weekly COVID-19 testing and will be required to wear appropriate PPE. This requirement also applies to high-risk congregate settings like adult and senior residential facilities, homeless shelters and jails.

The new policy for state workers will take effect August 2 and testing will be phased in over the next few weeks. The new policy for health care workers and congregate facilities will take effect on August 9, and health care facilities will have until August 23 to come into full compliance.