Right now, everyone is – by law and under threat of financial penalty – required to wear a mask when indoors in a public place in Guilford County.
That, however, looks like it will change on Monday, Nov. 15, when the Guilford County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to discuss the matter and possibly vote to remove the mandate.
The county implemented the mask mandate in August – twice.
In the first attempt, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners (acting as the Guilford County Board of Health) failed to meet a public notice requirement, which effectively rendered the mandate toothless. The second mandate in late August, however, did stick, and people in Guilford County have been required to mask up ever since in an attempt to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
At that time, the mandate came with an expiration date of early January. In January, commissioners might vote to extend the mandate – however, based on the board’s discussion nearly two weeks ago, it looks a lot like that baked-in expiration date won’t even come into play.
Guilford County Commissioner Justin Conrad said he believes the votes were probably there at the meeting about two weeks ago to get rid of the mandate. However, in order to drop the rule, the commissioners had to give at least 10 days of notice of the possibility. They did so the day after that meeting.
The meeting for potentially rescinding the mandate was scheduled for Monday, Nov. 15 – the first weekday after the 10-day public notice requirement was met. That scheduling date itself is a good sign for those who want to see the mandate come to an end.
At the mask mandate meeting in October, everyone on the Zoom call from commissioners of both parties to health experts seemed as though they would be comfortable with dropping the mandate at this Monday. Nov. 15 meeting.
When the mask mandate was implemented in late August, the county set two guidelines – though neither is binding on the board – for assessing when the mandate should end.
The motion that established the mandate also stated, it is “the Board’s intention to reevaluate this Rule as circumstances change, including if and when the County’s vaccination rate reaches 70% or its positivity rate is at or below 5% for 3 consecutive weeks.”
On Thursday, Nov. 11, the county listed the 14-day positivity rate at 4 percent and the single-day rate as 5.1 percent. About 55 percent of the total population of Guilford County has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Again, those are both guidelines. The commissioners can each make their decisions based on their views of the overall COVID-19 situation in Guilford County.
Glad comrade skippy is admitting defeat. Not that I have ever worn one to begin with but in tired of tyrannical public servants who think they have the ability to tel me what to do with my body.
With Skip as dictator of the county I escaped from, my advice is don’t count your chickens before they hatch.
Relaxation of the mask mandate sounds like a compromise for the people who are tired of restrictions but perhaps it is premature to consider that on the evening of two major holidays when there is a lot of domestic travel and gatherings of families from near and far. Europe is going through a third and fourth wave and each time mandates have been relaxed. It seems that Americans have the same mindset and therefore we should expect the same outcome – increasing infections, increasing hospitalizations and deaths particularly since there are still many many eligible people who have declined vaccination, the primary preventive modality for this highly contagious Delta variant virus. Must we reinvent the wheel?
A sock on my face is not preventing anything but nose picking. Germs are so small, they don’t even know it’s there, “doctor”. When a highly deadly virus goes airborne, the CDC does not roll out into the hot zone wearing paper or cotton masks, “doctor”. When I walk into a restaurant with my mask, but enjoy an entire meal in the same restaurant without said mask, the germs aren’t magically taking a break, “doctor”. Half measures are as good as no measures when discussing germ prevention. That is how patient zero managed to spread his infection to the entire world, “doctor”. If I walked into your practice infected with an airborne strain of Ebola, would you feel safe talking to me with just a mask on, “doctor”? Of course not. As a “doctor”, you should know that the only way to adequately prevent the spread and infection of a “highly contageous and infectious disease” is a total quarantine. Anything else is just for show and a waste of time.
Hey Doc, even Bill Gates is now admitting that the mRNA hasn’t been effective at preventing. Look at the data for delta and the countries with high vaccination rate. They’re going back into lockdown because it doesn’t work that well.
It certainly has been effective at reducing hospitalizations and deaths. But yes, it appears the delta variant has been able to infected higher than expected vaccinated but still less than unvaccinated. It is also looking like the vaccine effectiveness is diminishing after 6 months so a booster is now recommended.
But end of day it makes sense to get vaccine as it is effective enough to make a big impact.
“The primary preventive modality” for Covid infection (including the Delta variant) is natural immunity acquired from previous infection, not the ineffective and leaky “vaccines” (they’re not even vaccines in the accepted sense).
So you want to overwhelm hospitals and increase death and suffering? Not surprised.
Please don’t listen to Austin “misinformation” Morris. Get vaccinated and greatly reduce chance of hospitalization and death.
Don’t listen to Chris the Moron – but do look up “straw man argument”.
He deliberately misstates our position – as if we want to “increase death”! – and then makes an argument against increased fatalities.
It’s infantile, and so is he.
I see your point, but is MY choice where to go and how to behave, not Big Brother. If you want to wear a mask, and make other precautions, that’s fine with me. That is YOUR choice, not someone downtown, in Raleigh or Washington.
We’ve had flu epidemics as long as I can remember in our History books. During the Spanish flu, people did wear masks and avoided those with flu symptoms. With modern medicine, the epidemic here is far less than it was then.
I will not be a “bubble boy”.
Perhaps if the mask overreach is taken away, we and many of our friends may consider spending the majority of our resources locally again. However; we’re betting that the “leaders” will resurrect the Covid mandate or perhaps they’ll create another “crisis to maintain control of our bodies and our freedoms. There is, after all, a crucial midterm coming in less than a year. Should we be willing to just shut up and obey or demand our personal liberty as free people in a free country? Yet again, it IS UP TO Us. Stand up for freedom.
Amen!
If our ancestors had just stood back and let the government run them over we’d still be sipping the King’s tea.
Using a face mask to try to prevent getting COVID is like putting up a chain-link fence to keep out mosquitoes.
The DANMASK-19 and Bangladeshi studies have proven cloth/paper face masks are useless.
Austin “Lying” Morris the great misinformation zealot. I choose to listen to those with educations related to public health. I hope others that frequent here are smart enough to do the same.
No, you choose to believe everything you’re told – because you are a sheep.
Like 80 year old Dr. Fauci who is a life long government employee who has barely practiced medicine. And why is our country the only one not acknowledging antibodies? Isn’t that “science.” The lead cause of hospitalization and death is citizens of the US being fatasses. But no one wants to put that out within the major new organizations because then you would be fat shaming. The unhealthy lifestyle of Americans has led to our downfall in more ways that one.
You’re right, Mary. The most effective “preventive modality” – to put it in pretentious pompous language – is the natural immunity conferred by a prior Covid infection. It defeats all Covid variants, it is long lasting (much more so than the “vaccines”), it is natural not synthesised in a lab, and it will not gravely impair your body’s immune system for the rest of your life.
But Big Government & Big Pharma can’t make any money or exercise more power over you, so they refuse to acknowledge it.
PS According to newly released figures from the CDC, an estimated 146.6 million Americans have already been infected and survived. That means they have natural immunity.
I’m one of them.
You couldn’t pay me $1,000,000 to take The Clot Shot – and destroy my health.
And if my grandmother had wheels, she would be a bicycle.
“In the first attempt, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners (acting as the Guilford County Board of Health) failed to meet a public notice requirement, which effectively rendered the mandate toothless.”
The key word in that sentence is “acting.” They are only pretending to have any qualifications to justify their mandate. They are also “acting” as public servants, which they most assuredly are not.
Not getting my hopes up as I know they’re going to find a way to punt this out a little further.
We will continue to hear about COVID-19 and everything the DEMS are doing to “help protect us” until after the 2022 elections. Once they are defeated, the so called new media will lose interest.
Hahahahaha….we heard that crap when the Trump nutters said that coivd would magically disappear after the 2020 election as if Dems only cared about the election (like Trump) when they actually care about public health (unlike Trump did..hence he lost the election)
Keep the lie alive by changing the date?! Bahahaha
Unfortunately, the “Deep State” needs to be defeated before we’ll be rid of this nonsense. We will continue to hear about this, and the next thing, as long as the federal government is full of un-elected bureaucrats exercising their unconstitutional powers overs, and the masses continue to pay heed to the media/propaganda wing of the left.
Evil has obtained a hold across the world and will do everything it can to gain full control over our every action and thought.
You’re right Tom. If you didn’t see my letter of November 9th, I invite you to check it out.
It addresses the fundamental battle that’s taking place on our planet, and specifically in our great and good republic.
It’s a battle for the heart and soul of our country… and it’s going to be a close run thing.
I Don’t like masks either and yes I am vaccinated. However, everytime we relax these mandates as soon as the number reaches the magic 5% mark. We see a sharp increase in cases. Doing the same thing over and over will only produce the same results. Masks numbers go down, no masks numbers go up.