As NC coronavirus cases rise to 17, Gov. Cooper urges canceling large gatherings
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With 17 cases of coronavirus illness and more expected, North Carolina took stronger measures Thursday to slow the spread of illness. Gov. Roy Cooper advised people to cancel, postpone or modify any event likely to draw 100 people or more, starting Friday.
He also asked all employers to encourage people who can work from home to do so.
The measures are voluntary. But Cooper said if officials see people aren’t abiding by the guidance, they have the ability to change it to an order.
At a news conference Thursday afternoon where the restrictions were announced, Cooper said, “People are worried about what all this means for their families, their jobs, their incomes and their communities. Our actions today aim to lessen the long-term negative effects on our economy, as well as our health.”
Cooper said the state would be looking for help from the federal government and that he would be talking with the N.C. General Assembly about ways to offset the cost of medical care for people who can’t afford it and about the economic blow from event cancellations.
“We want to help those people,” he said, adding that he would explore all the legal avenues available, possible unemployment benefits and small business aid.
Things ‘moving exceptionally quickly’
Earlier in the day, several dozen top leaders from the government and private sectors met at the North Carolina National Guard headquarters in Raleigh to discuss the latest on COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
“I think things are moving exceptionally quickly, which is why we need to move exceptionally quickly as well, ” said Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
Cooper said that people should expect “some tough decisions” in the coming days, which he said will be critical — even if unpopular.
‘We know that lives are at stake,” Cooper said. “We also know that all of our lives will change in some way over the next few weeks and months. We know that there will be disappointment. We know that there will be loss of income.”
However, he added, “we are all in this together.”
The new cases reported Thursday are one in Wake County, two in Mecklenburg County, one in Cabarrus County, two in Forsyth County and one person in Johnston County and one aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Onslow County. Previously, state officials had reported eight cases in Wake County and another in Chatham County. A Durham County resident who tested positive and is now outside of North Carolina is being counted among North Carolina’s 17.
In a press release, the state said the two people in Forsyth County had traveled on a cruise ship with another person who was infected with the virus. Officials still are trying to determine how the person in Johnston County got sick.
The case at Camp Lejeune, the Marine Corps said in an announcement on Facebook, is a military dependent who was in close contact with a known case outside the area. The military said other family members had been around the patient but had not tested positive for the infection. Family members self-quarantined before the person showed symptoms, so the military believes the risk of spread is unlikely.
Events urged to cancel
Dr. Elizabeth Tilson, the chief medical officer at DHHS, urged event organizers to consider canceling, particularly if they expect large numbers of at-risk people might attend.
“We are seeing more cases, and this number is changing very rapidly,” Tilson said.
Officials announced Thursday the cancellation of the NCAA Division I men’s and women’s 2020 basketball tournaments, as well as all remaining winter and spring NCAA championships. The remaining games of the ACC Tournament also were canceled because of the threat of spreading COVID-19. . The decision came a day after tournament officials had said the games would go on but fans would not be allowed to attend.
Epidemiologists have said that each person who gets COVID-19 is likely to infect two or three additional people, according to Dr. Wesley Burks, CEO of UNC Health Care.
Bishop Hope Ward of the N.C. Conference of the United Methodist Church, representing churches throughout the eastern half of the state, urged churches to cancel public worship services and other gatherings for the next two weeks. Bishop Paul Leeland made the same request for churches in the state’s western conference.
“For social distancing to be effective, it must begin early — so early that it may feel unneeded and silly,” Ward said in a statement in which she described large gatherings as Petri dishes for spreading infection. “If we wait until its need is obvious, it is too late.”
The Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina made the same recommendation.
Cohen kicked off Thursday’s meeting of state leaders in front of digital maps showing the spread of the disease worldwide. Cooper declared a state of emergency for coronavirus earlier this week, and Cohen noted that the World Health Organization now officially considers it a pandemic.
In North Carolina, Cooper’s emergency declaration lifted restrictions on how much truckers can drive each day, speeding up the delivery of supplies around North Carolina. State health officials have identified a shortage of medical supplies such as face masks.
The emergency declaration also put state officials on higher alert for reports of price gouging, similar to in the wake of natural disasters.
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On Thursday, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools became the first to announce schedule changes as a result of the COVID-19 threat. Monday, March 16, through Wednesday, March 18, will now be optional teacher workdays, the system said, and students will not be in school those days. Spring break will begin Thursday, March 19 and run through Friday, March 27.
The week of March 30 to April 3, the system said, students will learn from home.
On Thursday night, Durham Public Schools announced a decision to close for students effective Monday, March 16. More details about will be available Friday on the school’s website, the county said.
Other systems had not announced closings, but Superintendent of Public Instruction Mark Johnson said Thursday those are possible in the future.
He said no matter what happens, it’s going to be unpopular. They’re hearing from parents who think schools should be closed already, he said, as well as from parents who don’t know what they’ll do if schools do close.
If schools close, Johnson said, it will hopefully go more smoothly than in other places, adding: “We are learning from other states who are going through this currently.”
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‘Between prudent action and panic’
As for colleges around North Carolina, many are shifting their classes from in-person to online-only — including the entire UNC System. Unlike in some other states, the dorms and dining halls are remaining open for now.
Bill Roper, the president of the UNC System, said Thursday that they’re trying to find the right balance “between prudent action and panic.”
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Roper is the former CEO of UNC Health Care as well as the former director of the federal government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said he’s banning any gatherings of more than 100 people on any public university campus without special permission, and that individual schools are going to lose some flexibility to make big decisions, with the system’s central office taking more control.
“We’re determined to move in a coordinated way,” he said.
Officials raised some other targeted issues Thursday that could also affect thousands of people. Some discussed how coronavirus could affect the agriculture industry, especially because on some big farms the field workers live in close quarters.
Nursing home leaders in attendance said because their patients are high-risk, they are, in at least some facilities, banning visitors from coming in to visit. They’re also planning for what happens with their staffing if schools close — because many nursing home employees have children and also work multiple jobs.
A top state prison official, Tim Moose, said they are also looking at ways to better screen visitors for coronavirus. But if there’s no good answer for how to deal with visitation, he said, officials will be “looking at possible suspensions of that in the very near future.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes high-risk people as those over age 65 and people with underlying health problems such as heart or lung disease, diabetes or weakened immune systems.
More than 16 percent of North Carolina residents are ages 65 and older, and in seven counties of the state, at least half the population is age 65 and up. Those are Cherokee, Clay, Polk, Transylvania and Allegheny counties in the western half of the state, and Pamlico and Brunswick counties in the east. None of those counties had a confirmed case of COVID-19 as of Thursday afternoon.
Older adults are not more susceptible to contracting the illness than other age groups, but researchers say they are likely to suffer more severe symptoms.
On Thursday, Wake health officials praised one unnamed patient in the county who avoided infecting others by self-isolating.
“This is a perfect example of how people should act when they begin to feel sick,” Wake County Medical Director Dr. Kim McDonald said in a press release. “If you start to feel sick, stay home, get some rest and avoid having close contact with your family members.”
County officials determined the patient had been in close contact with the traveler who visited Biogen in Research Triangle Park last week before going home to Indiana and testing positive for COVID-19. When the Wake County person began showing symptoms, they went into isolation at home, and officials say it’s unlikely they exposed others to the virus. The person tested positive for COVID-19 on March 11.
The status of many Triangle-area events remains up in the air. The News & Observer is tracking cancellations and reporting updates regularly.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
