Gov. Cooper extends NC stay-at-home order into May amid ongoing coronavirus threat
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced Thursday he is extending his stay-at-home order through May 8.
Cooper’s executive order was scheduled to expire on April 29. The move keeps only essential businesses, such as grocery stores and pharmacies, open. The restrictions, which also ban mass gatherings of more than 10 people, are in place in an effort to slow the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
Dine-in restaurants, bars and movie theaters, plus businesses where social distancing is nearly impossible such as nail salons and barber shops, must remain closed. Restaurants can continue to offer to-go and delivery service.
“It is clear that we are flattening the curve,” Cooper said in news conference Thursday. “But our state is not ready to lift restrictions yet. We need more time to slow the spread of the virus before we can ease the social restrictions.”
Cooper said he will make an announcement on Friday regarding any plans for the state’s public schools, which are now closed through May 15.
Neighboring states South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee have already started announcing plans to ease restrictions, while Virginia’s stay-at-home order extends until June 10.
“It’s important to get our economy moving forward,” Cooper said. “We’re helping with unemployment payments, stimulus money and the businesses that continue to be open. But I won’t risk the health of our people or our hospitals. And easing these restrictions now would do that.”
Dr. Mandy Cohen, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services secretary, praised the state’s citizens who are adhering to the stay-at-home measures because the state’s case growth is at a lower trajectory than the nation as a whole, meaning the state’s healthcare system is not overwhelmed.
At the same time, the restrictions still must continue, she said.
“Because there has been no vaccine and no treatment, it is clear that the strongest weapon we have to fight COVID-19 is social distancing,” Cohen said.
Cooper and Cohen announced benchmarks the state must meet in order to enter a three-phase process of incrementally relaxing restrictions. Those restrictions will be reduced more and more at each phase.
To move from phase to phase, the state must see 14-day decreases in the percentage of positive tests and the number of coronavirus-like cases identified by surveillance methods. It also requires a decrease or sustained-leveling of the number of lab-confirmed cases and hospitalizations.
Cohen said Thursday the trends show the state has seen a downward trajectory in COVID-19 cases discovered through its surveillance. But that’s the only benchmark the state has hit.
North Carolina has not seen declines in lab-confirmed cases, hospitalizations or the percentage of tests coming up positive over the last 14 days.
The state’s benchmarks differ slightly from the federal guidelines established and unveiled by the White House last week. Where the White House calls for 14-day decreases in all identified areas, Cohen said North Carolina will be satisfied by a sustained leveling in two of the areas.
In addition to those benchmarks, the state also needs to increase its testing capacity, ability to trace new cases and personal protective equipment supply.
Cohen said daily testing must grow from 2,500-3,000 per day to 5,000-7,000. The state’s workforce of contract tracers needs to grow from 250 to 500 plus digital tracing must begin to be deployed.
The state also needs adequate supplies to fill requests for at least 30 days. Currently, the state has less than a 30-day supply of gowns and N95 masks.
Phase One after order lifts
Cooper told reporters Phase One could start on May 9 after the extended order expires — but only if the state’s indicators continue to move in a positive direction.
Phase One expands the reasons you can leave home, Cooper said, like doing more shopping and visiting parks, which would reopen. He called it “beginning the process of moving forward.”
Cooper said he wants North Carolinians’ lives to get back to normal as much as possible while being careful with public safety at the same time. He called the first phrase a “modified” stay-at-home order.
There would be “more opportunities to go out safety without the restriction of going out only for needed supplies,” he said. But the stores that would be included will still have to implement social distancing, he said.
During Phase One, mass gatherings will still be limited to 10 people or fewer. Restrictions on nursing homes and other congregate settings will remain as they are now.
Phases Two and Three
Cooper said Phase Two would occur at least two to three weeks after Phase One is complete if the state continues to hit its benchmarks.
Phase Two lifts the stay-at-home-order.
Restaurants, bars, houses of worship and entertainment venues will be allowed to open as long as they operate at reduced capacity. The number of people allowed at gatherings would increase, and public playgrounds will open. Other businesses like gyms and personal care services that can follow safety protocols will also be allowed to open.
“We will still encourage our vulnerable population — those people who are most at-risk of becoming seriously ill — we’ll encourage them to stay at home,” Cooper said.
After four to six weeks of Phase Two, if the state continues to hit those benchmarks, Phase Three will begin.
Phase Three lessens restrictions for vulnerable populations, though those people would be encouraged to continue practicing social distancing. Restaurants, bars and houses of worship could increase their capacity. The mass gathering ban will increase to allow more people, Cooper said.
Nursing homes and other congregate living facilities will still have restrictions.
“As we move through these phases, if our inspections spike or trends move in wrong direction, may have to move back to a previous phase,” Cooper said.
What led up to this
Cooper told reporters earlier on Tuesday that an announcement will come this week on the stay-at-home order that was set to expire on April 29, as well as schools, which are closed through May 15.
Cooper also said Tuesday that he wants to “ease back” restrictions so the virus does not spike and overwhelm hospitals. The governor said the decision about the reopening of schools will include guidance from public health officials about what is needed to make students safe in school, the N&O previously reported.
Though Republican state lawmakers have been mostly supportive of Democrat Cooper’s response so far, Senate Republicans this week pressured him to release more data about the testing, contact tracing and trends the governor has said were key to lifting restrictions, and a detailed reopening plan.
Cooper and Cohen previously said they would base lifting restrictions on COVID-19 testing expansion, contact tracing and trends in data including deaths and hospitalizations.
Earlier this month, the governor also said that “wholesale lifting” of restrictions would be catastrophic, the N&O previously reported.
At least one national expert on the pandemic agrees with that approach.
Dr. Mark McClellan, who was Food and Drug Administration commissioner from 2002-04 under President George W. Bush and now directs Duke’s Margolis Center for Health Policy, said the state’s approach so far has limited the virus’ spread.
So as preparations are made to relax restrictions, leaders must remain vigilant to avoid a surge in cases that could overwhelm the healthcare system, he said in an interview with the News & Observer this week.
“By every analysis that we’ve seen,” McClellan said, “places like North Carolina, even though we’ve had some significant spread of the virus and even though we’ve missed some of it because of asymptomatic cases and limited testing, my guess and a lot of expert epidemiologists best estimate is only a small share of people in North Carolina are actually immune — less than 10 percent. That means if we are going to think about reopening successfully we have to prepare for the possibility of the virus really being able to affect the vast majority of North Carolinians even after what we’ve been through already and we have to plan accordingly for that.”
McClellan said not to expect social distancing restrictions to disappear.
“I think social distancing, in some form, is going to be with us for the foreseeable future,” McClellan said. “When we do take steps to reopen, it’s not going to be reopening to the place we were before the stay-in-place orders went into effect....We are definitely going to be having some significant social distancing in place but hopefully some social distancing that we can manage while still being able to go about any of our daily activities — going out to the beach, going to parks, going to movies but with more space.”
Republican response
Sen. Bob Steinburg, a Republican who represents the Outer Banks as well as other more rural parts of northeastern North Carolina in the state legislature, said he understands arguments on both sides of the debate.
For beachfront communities like in Dare and Currituck counties, he said, tourism is the main industry. And while fully reopening to tourists could cause a spike in cases, failing to reopen could also crush the local economy.
“So it’s a double-edged sword, of course,” he told The News & Observer over the phone on Thursday. “They could be bringing the virus with them. But we can’t live in fear.”
In general, Steinburg said, he thinks Cooper’s three-phase approach is a smart one. But he wishes it were sped up so restaurants, bars and other affected businesses could potentially reopen sooner.
“It is obvious that these safety protocols have helped to flatten the curve,” he said. “So I’m all for a three-step approach, if that’s what he’s got. But we need to get this thing moving faster.”
However, Steinburg said that for the smaller, more isolated areas he represents, where there’s not much tourism or travel between county lines, he doesn’t understand why local officials can’t make the decision to reopen before the rest of the state.
But Steinburg also acknowledged the unenviable position Cooper is in, balancing so many competing concerns.
“I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes,” he said. “It’s a tough spot to be in. Partisan politics aside, no matter what you do, you’re going to be wrong.”
Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, told the N&O before Cooper’s announcement that he’s not concerned about warnings that reopening too soon could cause a resurgence in cases, because he doesn’t think it’s too soon.
“Bring an end to this, in kind of a common sense way. I think some of the measures we have in place that you see in stores, like with the shields and the masks, keep those in place. But let the businesses open back up,” Robinson said.
Robinson, along with about 1,000 protesters, attended a “ReOpen NC” rally in downtown Raleigh on Tuesday. The protest was aimed at getting Cooper to reopen the state, including non-essential businesses.
“I think we can continue to see a decline, even if we see places open back up,” he said.
Ashley Smith, the organizer of ReOpenNC, criticized Cooper’s plan Thursday night.
“I’ll say this — our elected officials — including the Governor, our state reps and state senate on both sides of the aisle — need to be aware that their action — or inaction — will be remembered by voters this November,” she said in an emailed statement. “Elections have consequences and those in office now who can’t distinguish between our constitutional rights and these blatant violation of our rights may need to be replaced with others who do understand.”
The state, however, has not seen a decline in coronavirus cases — even with social distancing rules and stay-at-home orders in place. Thursday was the state’s second-largest day-over-day case increase, Cohen said.
On Thursday morning, North Carolina reported 7,759 cases of COVID-19, in 93 counties. There have been 275 deaths, according to the DHHS. The number of cases rose by nearly 400 from Wednesday to Thursday as the state continues to see triple-digit increases each day.
Even with that continued increase in cases, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest and Senator Phil Berger on Thursday both said Cooper’s stay-at-home extension and reopening plan will hurt the economy.
”This decision will needlessly crush businesses and destroy livelihoods in places that don’t even have a single case of coronavirus,” Forest said in an emailed statement.
“Gov. Cooper has extended the statewide restaurant closure through June 1, by which point many of those small businesses will likely be bankrupt,” Berger said in an emailed statement..
Senator Thom Tillis, however, agreed with Cooper’s plan to reopen the state when it’s safe to do so.
“I’ve long said that we all need to do our part on social distancing and put the peak of the curve in our rear-view mirror before we can begin to safely re-open our economy,” Tillis said in an emailed statement. “...So many families and small businesses are suffering right now, and I share the urgency of many North Carolinians to get our economy back up and running as soon as possible.
“At the same time, the worst thing that could happen is for us to have a significantly worse second spike (in the coronavirus) that results in more loss of life and forces another shutdown of our economy.”
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 3:10 PM with the headline "Gov. Cooper extends NC stay-at-home order into May amid ongoing coronavirus threat."
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