NC governor: ‘New normal is going to rely on testing,’ but feds need to help
Based on President Donald Trump’s guidelines for reopening states in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, North Carolina is not ready to relax social restrictions.
And North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said the state will need help from the federal government to expand testing before it is able to reopen.
“If you noticed the guidelines today, it said testing is the responsibility of the states,” Cooper said on MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes” Thursday night. “We’ve figured that out, but we need significant help from the federal government right now.”
The guidelines, released Thursday night, include a three-stage process, putting much of the decision-making in the hands of governors or local leaders and allowing for adjustments due to ”local circumstances.”
“We are not opening all at once, but one careful step at a time,” Trump said. “Some states will be able to open up sooner than others.”
But to proceed to the next step in the process, states will first need to meet certain criteria related to symptoms, cases and hospital availability. The criteria also call for a “downward trajectory of documented cases within a 14-day period or a downward trajectory of positive tests as a percent of total tests within a 14-day period.”
Cooper’s office issued a statement Thursday afternoon following a conference call with Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and the nation’s governors.
“Yesterday I laid out what’s required for North Carolina’s path to gradual re-opening, and it’s good the White House has shared similar guidance, but we still need the federal government to help with testing and personal protective equipment,” Cooper said in an emailed statement.
Cooper’s office did not respond to an email or multiple phone calls for follow-up questions from The News & Observer on Thursday.
But he said on MSNBC that the state needs more supplies — largely personal protective equipment for health-care workers who have to collect test samples from potentially infected patients.
“The biggest problem we have right now is testing capacity,” Cooper said on MSNBC. “What we need from the federal government right now is help on that testing capacity and with supplies and with personal protective equipment.
“The President doesn’t want to believe that testing is a problem,” Cooper told Hayes. “And it is a problem, particularly if we want to get the country going again.”
Phases to reopen country
The federal plan includes three phases. In Phase 1, the guidelines call for avoiding gatherings of more than 10 people when social distancing is not possible and minimizing non-essential travel. For employers, the guidelines encourage telework and closing common areas.
Schools, daycare facilities and camps that are closed are to remain closed. Visits to senior living facilities and hospitals are still not permitted, and bars should stay closed. But larger venues, including restaurants, places of worship and sporting venues, could re-open with social distancing. Elective surgeries could resume.
Phase 2 requires showing a downward trajectory of documented cases within a 14-day period. In that phase, schools and organized youth activities can reopen. Bars can operate with diminished standing-room only occupancy. Visits to senior care facilities and hospitals, however, still aren’t allowed. Telework is still encouraged.
In Phase 3, many of the restrictions could be lifted, though large venues and bars still have some requirements for physical distancing. Throughout the phases, elderly individuals or those with underlying health conditions should take extra precautions.
The Trump Administration wants the nation’s economy to open again as soon as possible.
“We can begin the next front in our war,” Trump said Thursday. “We’re opening up our country and we have to do that. America wants to be open and Americans want to be open.”
North Carolina’s coronavirus cases
Cooper said the state’s stay-at-home executive order has been successful in slowing COVID-19’s spread.
The state’s cases have increased from 2,737 on April 2 to 5,465 on Thursday, according to data from North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services. The state also has at least 150 deaths.
The state lab and private labs have reported 70,917 completed tests as of Thursday morning.
During a news conference Wednesday, Cooper said the restrictions on non-essential businesses can’t continue indefinitely. The stay-at-home order is due to expire on April 29.
Cooper said at a Wednesday news conference that the state needs to have a good handle on testing, tracing and following the trends of the virus before any restrictions can be relaxed.
“The new normal is going to rely on testing, and right now we don’t have the fully capability to do it. We’re working on it,” Cooper said on MSNBC Thursday night.
Movement to reopen NC
Earlier this week, protesters gathered in Raleigh, calling on the governor to reopen businesses.
But Cooper said the most likely move is a gradual relaxing, rather than removing all restrictions at one time.
“This virus is going to be with us until there is a vaccine, which may be a year or more away,” Cooper said Wednesday during a news conference. “That means that as we ease restrictions, we are going to enter a new normal. We want to get back to work while at the same time preventing a spike that will overwhelm our hospitals with COVID-19 cases.”
NC Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen said Thursday that testing people who show COVID-19 symptoms, as well as testing people who came in contact with them through tracing, are key factors to deciding when to relax restrictions.
She said the state needs to “double the capacity of testing that we have going on right now.” That means more test kits and more personal protective equipment for healthcare workers who administer tests. The federal government will need to play a role in accomplishing that.
“I think we have a plan in place to do that,” Cohen said. “But it’s not only going to take a collaboration between our public and private sector to do that, testing also relies on supplies. Not only the testing supplies themselves but the protective equipment for healthcare workers who are administering those tests. That is where we need the help of the federal government and the continued work of our manufacturing sector to make sure we have the supply chain there to actually run the tests as we increase our testing capabilities.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican and a member of Trump’s Congressional Economic Task Force on re-opening the economy, said widespread antibody testing, including programs recently announced by Wake Forest Baptist Health and the National Institute of Health, will also be key to re-opening the economy.
“All of that testing is going to be critically important to getting back to work,” he said.
While several tests are in development, the Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved any antibody test for COVID-19 for general use.
Cooper outlined what the “new normal” might look like Thursday night on MSNBC.
“In your first phase like they’re talking about, the new normal would be going into a restaurant, but realizing that it would have to be limited capacity, a lot of people wearing masks, and probably watching that Duke-Carolina basketball game on TV but without live, in-person fans being there,” he said. “That’s the kind of new normal that we’re going to have to live with for a while.
“As to when we can get back to normal, it’s going to depend on putting all this together with testing. It’s going to depend on effective treatments. It’s mostly going to depend on whenever we get that vaccine discovered, manufactured, and administered across the country.”
This story was originally published April 16, 2020 at 2:21 PM with the headline "NC governor: ‘New normal is going to rely on testing,’ but feds need to help."