No ban on face masks in North Carolina – yet. Vote sends bill to House | Fact check

Joedy McCreary, USA TODAY
·4 min read

The claim: North Carolina banned wearing face masks for health reasons in May 2024

A May 18 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows a crowd of people wearing face masks.

“News: Masks banned in North Carolina due to criminal concerns,” reads text in the image.

The post’s caption contains more detail about the type of face coverings that are now supposedly banned.

“State Republicans specifically banned wearing masks for health reasons,” part of the caption reads.

The post was liked more than 17,000 times in five days.

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Our rating: False

There was no ban as of May 23. The claim overstates the impact of a North Carolina Senate vote on a bill to repeal a law that allows people to wear masks in public for health reasons. The measure has not passed the House, which instead voted to not concur with the version of the bill containing the repeal.

Bill to prohibit mask-wearing for health reasons has not passed House

A 71-year-old North Carolina law prohibits people from wearing masks or hoods in public that disguise their faces or voices and conceal their identities. That law has several exemptions, including one added during the COVID-19 pandemic that allows masking "for the purpose of ensuring the physical health or safety of the wearer or others,” according to its text. The Instagram post refers to House Bill 237, which would remove that exemption.

While the post’s caption correctly notes the bill passed the Republican-led Senate on May 15, it overstates what that vote accomplished. It did not put a ban in place. The vote simply moves the bill to the House of Representatives, where its future is uncertain. The House, also controlled by the GOP, decided by a voice vote May 22 to not concur with the Senate version of the legislation, rejecting it and sending it to a conference committee to be revised.

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The legislation started as a House bill filed in March 2023 that contained provisions to make money laundering a state crime and increase penalties for people convicted of committing crimes while wearing masks or hoods. It passed the House on May 3, 2023, by a 93 to 24 vote.

That legislation spent more than a year in the Senate and underwent significant changes there. The Senate committee's substitute version makes no mention of money laundering and alters the list of exemptions to the mask law to delete the one for health and safety reasons. The Senate passed that version May 15 by a 30 to 15 party-line vote after Republican lawmakers rejected proposed amendments from two Democratic senators to reinstate that exemption, WRAL-TV in Raleigh reported.

The state's anti-mask law was adopted in 1953 in part to prevent Ku Klux Klan members from concealing their identities in public. Supporters of the House bill in 2024 say it would help police identify protesters who they say abuse the pandemic-era exemption by wearing masks while breaking laws. Opponents counter it would allow police to arrest anyone wearing a face mask in public.

State Sen. Buck Newton, the Republican sponsor of the committee substitute version, said there is no record of anyone being arrested before the COVID-19 pandemic for wearing a mask for health reasons – even though that action was illegal at the time, WRAL-TV in Raleigh reported. USA TODAY reached out to Newton but did not immediately receive a response.

Action by state legislatures has regularly spawned misinformation on social media. USA TODAY has debunked false claims that a Louisiana law took away parole from inmates, that a Michigan bill would make using a person’s wrong gender pronouns a felony and that Pennsylvania in February 2024 acted to legalize marijuana.

USA TODAY reached out to the Instagram user who shared the post but did not immediately receive a response.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: North Carolina Senate vote didn't yet ban medical masks | Fact check

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