CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Believe it or not, at one point in November, there was a discussion of removing the Mecklenburg County mask mandate because the percent positivity rate was around 6%. The omicron variant changed everything, and the latest data shows 27.6% of the tests in Mecklenburg County are coming back positive.
But health leaders are still talking about when masks could be removed in public places.
At Tuesday’s Board of County Commissioners meeting, health director Dr. Raynard Washington said he is not comfortable removing the mask mandate just yet. But he does think in a couple of weeks the situation could be very different.
Health experts at the state level think the same.
“If we’re able to continue the decline in surge at the rate that’s been happening in the last week, I do see some real opportunities for relaxing mask mandates, relaxing our activities, just within next month,” Dr. Mark McClellan, former FDA commissioner and professor at Duke University said.
On Tuesday, Washington went through the latest COVID-19 data and when compared to surrounding counties that did not have mask mandates in place, he said it appears the mask mandate made somewhat of a positive impact.
“You can see that our case rates were about half that of the other counties put together, around us here in Mecklenburg County,” he said.
The mask mandate was reinstated in the county in August, at the start of the deadly delta surge. Washington said the county is past the peak but still in the omicron surge. There are still hundreds of new cases every day and hospitals remain overwhelmed.
It's become somewhat controversial and the mandate isn't always enforced.
“There is a subvariant of omicron that is circulating in the community that’s here and so we’ve got to remain vigilant at this time,” he said. “There’s no data point now that I can point to that says hey this is a good idea to do this.”
More patience will be required, at least for a few more weeks.
“You’re not going to satisfy everyone. You’re going to stop it too soon for some people and too late for others. I think in the next few weeks you’ll start to see places start to stand down some of those precautions,” Dr. David Priest with Novant Health said.
Washington also said county health leaders are considering changing the metrics they’ll use to determine if the mask mandate can be removed, so it may not be the percent positivity rate.
Contact Chloe Leshner at cleshner@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.