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Partly cloudy skies this morning will become overcast during the afternoon. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph..
Tonight
Variably cloudy with scattered thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. Low near 65F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
Anti-mask advocates cheer after the Alamance-Burlington Board of Education votes to make masks optional, Tuesday, Feb. 22.
Times-News
Isaac Groves | Times-News
Staff and students in Alamance-Burlington Schools can still wear masks to protect themselves from COVID-19 but they no longer have to.
The Alamance-Burlington Board of Education voted 6-1 to immediately lift the mask mandate in a 5-minute special meeting Tuesday, Feb. 22. The district has required masks since students came back to school in person nearly a year ago.
The crowd of about 30 spectators, many holding anti-mask signs, cheered and applauded at the vote, but were not entirely pleased. Board Chair Sandy Ellington-Graves said at the start of the meeting a 2021 order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention means students and drivers will still have to wear masks on school buses.
“Next, we’ve got to get the masks off of buses, then we’re going after (critical race theory),” Tara Cole said to fellow anti-mask activists after the meeting. “That’s the next battle.”
It was a quick turnaround. On Feb. 10, the board voted 4-3 to keep the mandate. Gov. Roy Cooper last week encouraged school districts to go mask-optional in March, and the General Assembly passed a bill basically making masks optional for all students.
The public-health trends are also going the right way, said Tony Lo Giudice, Alamance County Health Director.
“Our percent positivity, for example, right around Feb. 1 was around 33%, now it’s down to 13% -- that’s how fast this has been falling,” Lo Giudice said. “We see cases significantly dropping, we see hospitalizations significantly dropping, we have the tools like the vaccines, and doctors have treatment options that weren’t available a year ago today.”
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Ellington-Graves and Board Member Ryan Bowden have voted against the mask requirement since getting on the board. They each came outside to celebrate with supporters after the meeting. Bowden told the group it was time to focus on students and be civil with each other. The mask debate has not been as intense in Alamance County as it has in other districts.
The state Department of Health and Human Services recommends school districts base mask policies on the rate of local community spread. Cloth masks are not as effective against the highly contagious omicron variant of COVID-19, so CDC recommends N95 masks or surgical masks if they fit tightly around the face.
Many states, cities, counties and now the majority of North Carolina school districts have lifted their local mask requirements.
Board member Patsy Simpson voted against going mask-optional, saying when other districts went mask-optional their COVID cases increased significantly, and Alamance County still has too high a rate of COVID spread to relax precautions.
“The numbers are just way too high,” Simpson said, Monday.
While cases are coming down steeply statewide, Alamance County is still a high-transmission county, according to the CDC. That’s something it shares with most of the state but Alamance County has relatively few people hospitalized for COVID with 26 new admissions last week. There were 92 new cases reported district-wide on the ABSS COVID Dashboard last week. DHHS reported clusters of five or more related cases at Smith and Altamahaw-Ossipee elementary schools, Tuesday, but ABSS Public Information Officer Jenny Faulkner said that was a lagging indicator from earlier in February.
Isaac Groves is an Alamance County watchdog reporter for the Times-News and the USA Today Network. Call or text 919-998-8039 with tips and comments or follow him on Twitter @TNIGroves.
