County leaders, city and town mayors, and area health officials went into emergency mode on Monday, Jan 3.
Chairman of the Board of Commissioners Skip Alston held an extended virtual meeting that included all of the city and town mayors in Guilford County. Alston said after the meeting that the seriousness of the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 had spurred the need for the meeting at which a new mask mandate was a key topic of discussion.
Alston added that, in addition to that meeting with the mayors, he’d also met much of the day with Guilford County staff, including county health officials, emergency response workers and the county’s legal office.
Alston said Monday after the meetings that area mayors had expressed a range of views regarding a new mask mandate that would require anyone in Guilford County to wear a mask while at public places such as stores, bars, clubs, restaurants or anywhere where members of the public congregate inside.
“Some of the mayors favored a mandate,” Alston said, “Some didn’t and some had concerns about enforcement and that type of thing.”
Alston said one group that’s not split at all is the group of medical professionals from Cone Health and other health venues in the county. They want to see a mask mandate in place.
He said that, when the county got rid of the previous mask mandate in November, the percentage of positive coronavirus tests in Guilford County was under 5 percent – but now the numbers are much higher.
“We’re seeing a rate of 18.97 percent,” Alston said, adding that the test positivity rate had been much higher on some days recently and was expected by medical professionals to be over 30 percent soon.
The Guilford County Board of Health – which is identical to the Board of Commissioners in Guilford County – has called a meeting for Thursday, Jan. 13. However, at the rate things are moving now, a mask mandate could be in place before that meeting takes place.
If a restaurant expects me to wear a mask for 5 steps only to remove it when I open my mouth to eat, they are misinformed.
I will not comply with this virtue signaling BS.
By NOT wearing the mask you are virtue signaling just the same…just the other side of the stick. The whole idea of covid protocols being politicized is silly. Wearing a mask for 5 steps is not a big deal (I admit it seems silly). If it signals to the staff and ownership that I care about the health of others, that is fine with me. I will wear a mask for 5 steps if they ask (some restaurants still do even though there is no mandate). No big deal. Better than inviting some poor staff member to enter into a conflict over something that is out of their control.
But you be you.
And as always you be you
Loud and proud Will! Someone has balance out you nutters and your misinformation.
I say let them enjoy their Covid hysteria and let us enjoy living life. There are people who seem to enjoy this hysteria, it gives them purpose to complain about others not doing what they want them to do. However I have the right to live my life freely without government or anyone else dictating how I live. Freedom didn’t come cheaply and damn if I’m going to give it up easily! A constitutional republic means we have freedom of choice: you choose to be afraid and live your life covered up and I will live life happy and breathe freely. It’s my choice whether you like it or not. I’m not telling you that you can’t wear a mask…go for it. At the same time you can’t tell me I have to wear one. Again my choice. Quit whining about people not doing what you think they should do and go live!
Nonsense! Until a year ago walking around like a normal human being was universally, well, normal. Oh the people in Tokyo in their cram-packed trains would wear facemasks, and we would laugh at them, packed in like sardines, but the rest of the World went around barefaced. Right?
Not wearing a face diaper is normal behavior.
Going around with something obscuring half your face is not.
Fact.
A New Normal. Things change all the time. I know ignorant people such as yourself have hissy fits with change but change is the one true constant in life. Get over it.
Mandate all you want but just like last time we will not comply. There is overwhelming evidence that this virtue signaling has never worked.
You can’t enforce and any business that attempts will loose my business
– we are all exempt 🙂
Here’s a wild concept, how about we let the individual decide, why don’t we try living with COVID instead of legislating our way through it, which so far hasn’t worked. Why don’t we try encouraging exercise, getting out in the sun, taking vitamin D, and all the other common sense things you can do do boost your immune system. These mandates are beyond intrusive and need to end!
But then Caesar wouldn’t have control and couldn’t offer pennies to the poor for submission.
I see people driving (alone), riding bikes (alone), walking (alone), etc. with masks on. I see folks enter restaurants, then put their mask on. I see folks enter the restaurant with a mask on, then get up and walk around freely without the mask. Obviously, no understanding of the concept of masks.
Masks do filter some particles. However, do masks filter the COVID particles?
Do masks filter out covid? Well, the pores in a mask, unless it is an N95 mask, are on the order of 160 microns. The aerosolized viral particles are on the order of 5 to 6 microns; you can figure out how well the mask will work, even if worn properly.
Before we go off the deep end again, how many people are actually dying from the omicron variant? The statistics seem to indicate very few. When will this madness end? Will we be wearing masks next to prevent basic influenza? We have never looked at positivity rates and such data for this each year. If you ignore the pundits and actually explore data bases, you will find a totally different picture of this variant.
Some states are seeing hospitalization rates jumping over 100% the last two weeks with hospitalization rates already over 30 to 40 per 100k which is stressing medical care for non covid people in need of serious medical care. Remember the line…flatten the curve…the point is keeping hospitals from being overstressed. With at least 3 to 4 weeks left before this surge is expected to peak, over 50% of hospitals are reporting as Stressed or Highly Stressed.
No one questions this variant of the virus is less likely to require hospitalization (50% less by one estimate) yet this is heavily offset by the significantly higher rate of transmission.
The good news is that once hospitals push through this surge, we could very well have the herd immunity we need to put this behind us given increased vax rates combined with natural immunity of the infected antivax crowd. Of course this is being said by highly educated people with deep experience in studying pandemics (statistical data analysis as you note) so hope that doesn’t trigger you.
Thank you to all at Cone Health for the wonderful work that you are doing, and thank you for asking the Mayors of Guilford County, and others, to please be vaccinated and wear a mask — both important to getting down the fatal covid numbers. Concern is with high covid cases our health care is overloaded and harms everyone.
Your request makes all the sense in the world.
Sad Sadie, when consider that in the last nine months of 2020 that 350,000 people died, ostensibly of covid, when there was no vaccine. In the same time span, the first nine months of 2021 when the vaccine was actively pushed, there were 352,000 deaths. It would seem that the vaccines don’t work all that well. Of course the number of cases are going up since there is a massive push to get people tested. In one location, the increased testing showed a rise in case rates increased 240% bit at the same time hospitalizations were down 4%. With the omicron variant, you usually have to be tested to see if you have it. Coupled with over 150 peer reviewed studies showing that masks have no statistical effect in reducing transmission, it’s pretty evident that these draconion measures are not effective and serve no useful purpose.
Sadie, if masks worked, they would have worked last year. If the “vaccine” worked, we wouldn’t need to wear masks that don’t work. If you want to wear a mouse hammock on your face, go for it, but please have some respect for the choices the rest of us make. Or to put it another way, this isn’t about you.