Is North Carolina headed for another COVID-19 shutdown? Here’s what to watch

Each morning, usually by 11 a.m., the bad news comes. North Carolina’s COVID-19 numbers are posted by the Department of Health and Human Services, and each morning, they are alarming. Case numbers are spiking. Hospitalizations are increasing. The state’s numbers are not leveling, as state officials talked hopefully about just a month ago. They are worsening.

Gov. Roy Cooper and DHHS secretary Mandy Cohen are clearly concerned. Cooper has declined to move the state into the next phase of reopening. He’s squashed Republican attempts to reopen more businesses via legislation. And late last month, he issued a mask mandate for all of North Carolina.

Still, our COVID numbers relentlessly climb. We’re not where Texas, Arizona and others are, but we’re not comfortably distant, either. That reality carries with it a disconcerting question: Is North Carolina headed toward another shutdown?

We don’t want that. The first shutdown, justified as it was in March, took a significant toll on N.C. businesses and workers. Another lockdown would be devastating, and no one would welcome the defiance and conflict that would bring.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t steps the governor can take to stop the surge – or that the governor should be the only one mulling them. Local leaders, too, need to step out of the background and make decisions that are best for their constituents.

Thus far, with few exceptions, North Carolina cities and counties have largely deferred to the governor for COVID-19 restrictions. Local officials who spoke to the Editorial Board said that cities and counties lack health departments, and that Cooper and the Department of Health and Human Services are best equipped for such decisions. It also doesn’t hurt to let the governor be the bearer of bad news. But that needs to change if North Carolina is going to slow the COVID spike. The governor and DHHS need to work actively with cities and counties and provide whatever COVID support they need.

It’s also critical to recall what the state’s goal is with the virus. When officials talked early on about flattening the curve, their aim wasn’t simply about lowering case numbers; it was about keeping those numbers from spiking and overwhelming hospitals. That’s still true. What North Carolina wants is to avoid what happened in New York hospitals in March and some Texas hospitals this month — emergency rooms saying they can’t accept new patients or doctors having to make awful decisions about who might be more worthy of COVID care.

Hospital capacity — specifically available ICU beds — are still the best indicator of how critical things are in North Carolina. The state’s hospital capacity has remained at relatively safe levels — 75 percent as of Sunday — and at least some hospitals have the ability to increase ICU beds if circumstances demand. But with the recent increase in cases and hospitalizations, some areas are approaching troubling territory. In Mecklenburg, COVID hospitalizations jumped more than 25 percent in the past two weeks. “We are particularly concerned about the Charlotte area and its hospital capacity,” Cohen said late last week.

The good news is we know more about the virus and how it’s transmitted than we did in March. That means restrictions can be more targeted and precise — not only regionally but with what activities are moderated. For example, we know now that COVID transmission is less likely outdoors than where people congregate indoors for lengthy amounts of time. Restaurant dining rooms should be among the first places officials look to curb activity. Outdoor dining and businesses where customers enter and leave relatively quickly might be less of a priority.

We also know, however, what happens when officials are too timid. As others states have shown, numbers can go bad in a hurry. Cooper can’t let hotspots in North Carolina grow unmanageable. Local officials, in consultation with hospitals, also need to be ready to act. No one wants a shutdown. The time to avoid it is now.

This story was originally published July 13, 2020 at 10:25 AM.