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Boone Reinstates Mask Requirement In Public Buildings

In this June 2020 photo, a sign in the window of a Boone restaurant asks customers to wear a mask. The town has reinstated the mask mandate after a surge of cases in Watauga County. PAUL GARBER/WFDD FILE

The Town Council of Boone is bringing back its mask mandate, requiring them even for people who have been vaccinated. 

The emergency order reinstates rules put in place last June, requiring masks and social distancing for anyone in a public indoor setting. 

The order notes that Watauga County has been a place of substantial transmission of the virus recently and it could become more dangerous when students return to Appalachian State University for in-person classes this month. 

The university has also implemented a mask requirement of its own.

There are some differences in the new order compared to last year's version. An exemption for those who could not wear a mask for medical reasons remains. Now there's an additional provision to allow folks to remove their masks when seated in a restaurant. 

And, a new exemption applies to younger people. It covers anyone two and under. Last year's cutoff was eleven.

Violations are considered a misdemeanor but police are encouraged to educate people about mask use and issue warnings first.

The mask requirement goes into effect Tuesday evening.

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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