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Indoor Mask Mandate Returns To The Triad

A sign from June 2020 in the window of Pepper's Restaurant and Bar in Boone asks customers to wear a mask. The town has now made indoor masks in public places a requirement for a second time. PAUL GARBER/WFDD

Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines issued an emergency order requiring residents to wear masks in non-household situations indoors. It's the latest North Carolina city to reinstate indoor masking mandates.

The Twin City joins Charlotte, Raleigh and Boone, as well as Orange, Durham, Wake, and Buncombe counties, with Guilford's indoor masking mandate slated to begin later this month. According to Mayor Joines' declaration, face coverings will be required whenever people come into contact with non-household members indoors — places like restaurants, grocery stores, gyms and other businesses.

Infectious disease expert Dr. Christopher Ohl says when fully vaccinated people transmit the highly contagious delta variant to other fully vaccinated people, the results are relatively mild, what he calls a “COVID cold.”

"What's the important thing about a COVID cold is not to give it to somebody who's immunocompromised or unvaccinated, or at the extremes of age, or has a lot of underlying medical problems," says Ohl. "That's the transmission from a vaccinated person that we worry about."

The new declaration in Winston-Salem recommends vaccination, and social distancing in spaces that require masking to slow the spread of COVID-19. The indoors mask mandate takes effect in Winston-Salem beginning Friday at 5:30 p.m.

Before his arrival in the Triad, David had already established himself as a fixture in the Austin, Texas arts scene as a radio host for Classical 89.5 KMFA. During his tenure there, he produced and hosted hundreds of programs including Mind Your Music, The Basics and T.G.I.F. Thank Goodness, It's Familiar, which each won international awards in the Fine Arts Radio Competition. As a radio journalist with 88.5 WFDD, his features have been recognized by the Associated Press, Public Radio News Directors Inc., Catholic Academy of Communication Professionals, and Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas. David has written and produced national stories for NPR, KUSC and CPRN in Los Angeles and conducted interviews for Minnesota Public Radio's Weekend America.

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