Our View: Fayetteville, Cumberland should present unified front on mask guidance, COVID-19

To mask or not to mask — that is the question.

Or it is now, since Fayetteville and Cumberland County have somehow managed to create confusion.

Mayor Mitch Colvin announced in a statement on Oct. 29 that the city would end its mask mandate on Nov. 1, which was Monday. The county mandate remains in place, however — an announcement the county Health Department made just hours after the mayor’s announcement last Friday.

Related: Mayor Mitch Colvin to rescind Fayetteville's mask mandate, Cumberland's order remains

The Health Department on its website writes: “The Public Health Abatement Order remains in place. Masks are required indoors across Cumberland County, including all municipalities — Fayetteville, Hope Mills, Spring Lake, Wade, Eastover, Falcon, Godwin, Linden and Stedman.”

We can understand why people might be scratching their ends over the seemingly conflicting guidance between the city and county.

So let’s be clear: The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not changed its guidance on wearing masks to stop the spread of COVID-19. The CDC says masks should be worn in indoor, public spaces. It is generally fine to go without them outside, the guidance says, with exceptions such as crowded outdoor settings in places with high numbers of cases.

The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services tracks with CDC guidance, as does the county Health Department under the very capable Dr. Jennifer Green. The guidance is, in a word, sound.

Our View: With delta surging, Cumberland, Fayetteville deserve kudos for mask mandates

It feels to us like Colvin jumped the gun, but that is not how he sees it. He told a reporter on Friday: “My goal was to rescind what I signed. Whatever they want to implement by their authority is fine by me.”

Colvin, in an amendment to the city's State of Emergency declaration, cited reasons for his decision, including that the number of fully vaccinated adults in the county has increased to 57%.

Fayetteville residents obviously live in Cumberland County and can deduce that, as such, the county mask ordinance still applies to them.

But some clarification would have been helpful. Even better would have been a unified statement or announcement from the city, county and Health Department.

It certainly does not help when residents see a scene like the Monday meeting of the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners, where commissioners Michael Boose and Jimmy Keefe sat unmasked — even as Green, who was at the podium, made a presentation on COVID-19. (Keefe later put his mask on.)

We are still in the era of pandemic — although we are as heartened as anyone to see new infections and hospitalizations fall as the delta variant of the virus recedes.

Vaccine news: COVID-19 vaccines for children will soon be available at multiple Cumberland County locations

We have now entered a phase where government response to the already-complex pandemic becomes even more complicated. This is due, ironically, to various reports of good news in our fight against COVID-19. The state for instance announced recently that 67% of residents are fully vaccinated.

Additionally:

• Hospitalizations are down and the Dept. of Health and Human Services has been reporting daily positivity rates of 5% or even lower.

• Most school systems, including Cumberland County Schools, have managed to make it through the year so far with relatively few instances of school shutdowns or widespread quarantines. The Cumberland school system specifically reported a 5% infection rate in its last dashboard report, which has shown a steady weekly decline in new infections.

• Football games and other large-scale sporting events that arrived with the fall have not proven to be the super-spreader events some people feared they might be.

On top of all that, the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization this week for vaccines for younger children, ages 5 to 11. This group comprises some 28 million people, giving public health officials hope that if a large number take the vaccine, it will move the country farther along in its fight against COVID-19. Not to mention, it will be a cause of great relief for those parents anxious to give their little ones this measure of protection.

The CDC decision means providers can start administering the vaccines right away, and several providers in Cumberland County, including the Health Department, will start making the shots available within days.

Taken together, the recent news means that, as we head into the holiday season, we can relax just a little. We hasten to add this is not the same as throwing caution to the wind.

We don’t know what new virus variant may be around the corner — there have already been reports of “delta plus” in North Carolina — or what other twist or turn this maddening virus may have in store.

So it remains important as ever that city and county leaders speak with a clear, unified voice on measures still needed to protect the public.

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This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville, Cumberland should unify on mask guidance, COVID-19