After Going Maskless at Stadium, Eric Garcetti Urges Super Bowl Fans to Wear Masks

Eric Garcetti maskless (Twitter)
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Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has urged those attending Super Bowl LVI at Sofi Stadium next weekend to wear masks — just days after he was photographed without wearing a mask at the same stadium at the NFC Championship game.

Garcetti claimed that he only took his mask off for long enough to take photos with former L.A. Lakers star Magic Johnson and others, and that he did not exhale when he had his mask off, ostensibly reducing the risk to thousands of others at SoFi.

The Associated Press reported:

Three days after being photographed without a face mask at the NFC championship game, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti joined other officials Wednesday to urge fans headed for the Super Bowl to strictly adhere to pandemic safety protocols that include staying masked, except while eating or drinking.

The Los Angeles area continues to see high levels of COVID-19 infections, and ticket holders ages 5 and older must show proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test to enter. Under a Los Angeles County health order, masks are required at all times, with limited exceptions.

Garcetti has prided himself throughout the pandemic on being the first big-city mayor in the U.S. to require masking.

“We did what it took to save lives, from closing down businesses where people gather … to requiring masks … to providing free testing to those without symptoms … to stocking our hospitals with PPE,” he said in his “State of the City” address in 2021.

“We got there first and we got it done.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new novel, Joubert Park, tells the story of a Jewish family in South Africa at the dawn of the apartheid era. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, recounts the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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