Mask Mandate Under Consideration In North Carolina: Gov. Cooper

NORTH CAROLINA — With a decision looming as to how or if North Carolina goes forward with the easing of coronavirus restrictions at the end of the month, state public health officials are considering whether to make cloth face coverings mandatory, Gov. Roy Cooper said Monday.

The news comes as state and federal public health officials continue to express concern about the state's trajectory with novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19. As of Monday, there were 45,102 confirmed cases of COVID-19, reported in North Carolina — 983 more than reported Sunday. Nine new deaths were also reported since Sunday, pushing the state's death tally to 1,118, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services said.

Under the state's current "Phase 2" restrictions, which is set to expire June 26, masks must be worn by personal care workers, such as in hair and nail salons. Cooper said a decision about how— or if — the state progresses into Phase 3 will be announced early next week.

"The health experts are looking carefully at the numbers and the science and we will let the people of North Carolina know at the first of next week whether we will go into the next phase, and if so, what that phase will look like," Cooper said during a news conference.

Masks could possibly be a component of the decision.

"It's absolutely in discussion right now regarding whether we make cloth face coverings mandatory and in what way we do it," Cooper said. "We want people to voluntarily to do this, but we are looking at additional rules to potentially make these mandatory."

A study out of Texas A&M University on Friday, for example, found that those not wearing masks were more at risk for becoming infected with COVID-19, Science Daily reported. "Our results clearly show that airborne transmission via respiratory aerosols represents the dominant route for the spread of COVID-19," said Texas A&M University atmospheric sciences professor Renyi Zhang. "By analyzing the pandemic trends without face-covering using the statistical method and by projecting the trend, we calculated that over 66,000 infections were prevented by using a face mask in little over a month in New York City. We conclude that wearing a face mask in public corresponds to the most effective means to prevent inter-human transmission."

Public health officials are reviewing several studies that have come out in the last couple of weeks that look at the issue of face coverings in the specific context of COVID-19, NCDHHS Secretary Mandy Cohen said .

"The face covering really shows effectiveness when we can get many, many folks doing that all together," Cohen said.

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