To answer the most asked question about COVID, while there are many counties in California that are now recommending that all persons wear face coverings when indoors, there is only one that is mandating the use of masks when indoors - Los Angeles County.
To answer another oft-asked question, while there is nothing in the state protocols that proscribe any on-course activity that was allowed pre-COVID, individual facilities and clubs are within their rights to prohibit a practice they are not yet comfortable reinstituting.
Finally, to the question given the potency of the Delta variant, when can we expect things to go back to normal - i.e., life as it was pre-Covid?
First, you need to remember that viruses like the flu and COVID are endemic; that is, their susceptibility to mutation makes it all but impossible to completely eliminate them. Vaccines can and routinely do prevent them and when unable to prevent, substantially mitigate their effects. That is exactly what is occurring now with the Delta variant - a few breakthrough infections that cause negligible problems for those infected but allow for continued spread to the unvaccinated, which in turn keeps the variant alive and well.
Second, and more on point to the last question, the results of a 2.7% margin of error poll in yesterday's USA Today provides the best answer. The July 13-15 survey of 1,715 adults indicates that 37% of unvaccinated respondents believe the vaccine represents a greater risk than COVID, just shy of 35% say they are not sure, and 29% say getting COVID is riskier than getting the vaccine.
Conclusion: COVID isn't going away any time soon, any more than influenza has gone away; however, with so many having been vaccinated and so many of the previously infected having developed short-term immunity, the chances of anything about the play of golf being affected is extraordinarily unlikely when you consider that even Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer has indicated in a very recent New York Times interview that circumstances would have to be "extraordinary" for her to even consider closing concert and other large gathering venues based on what is unfolding with respect to the Delta variant. Golf in the wide-open spaces of fairways, driving ranges, and practice greens isn't in jeopardy.
