Gov. Cooper tries a COVID curfew in North Carolina. It probably won’t be enough.

Three weeks ago, as other states tightened COVID-19 restrictions, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper warned of worsening virus metrics but announced no new COVID measures. Two weeks ago, as hospitalizations and positive tests rates continued an alarming rise, Cooper told North Carolinians: “We are in danger.”

Now, the governor has little choice but to act. North Carolina is experiencing record highs of cases and hospitalizations, and although hospital capacity is not urgently threatened at the moment, a continued spread could bring dire strain to health care systems in both urban and rural counties.

On Tuesday, Cooper took an incremental step toward confronting that surge with a “modified stay-at-home order” that will require people to stay at home and businesses to close from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. The order also will require all on-site alcohol consumption sales to stop at 9 p.m. “With this additional action beginning Friday, we hope to get these numbers down,” Cooper said.

His order might not be enough. States that imposed similar measures weeks ago saw the virus slow initially but only temporarily. “It’s a half-measure and maybe less than a half-measure, but that’s better than no measure at all,” Raymond Niaura, interim chair of the epidemiology department at the New York University School of Global Health, said of curfews to CNN.

That’s why some states are enacting or contemplating the next apparent step: a targeted, precise shutdown. Such measures have worked in Europe, which experienced a COVID-19 resurgence in the fall. Attacking the virus aggressively now in North Carolina might be the best path to preventing prolonged misery this winter.

A North Carolina stay-at-home order wouldn’t need to be as stringent as Cooper’s restrictions in March. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued rules that took effect Monday, including requiring restaurants to halt in-person dining and offer food only for delivery and takeout. Retail can remain open at 20 percent capacity, as can schools that already were open. Hair and nail salons, playgrounds, breweries and wineries must close, however, and gatherings of people from different households are prohibited, with the exception of outdoor religious services.

Like California, Cooper could also target the order regionally or to individual counties instead of imposing it statewide as he did in the spring. California’s stay-at-home restrictions apply to any of the five regions where less than 15 percent of hospital ICU units are available.

Such an order, even targeted regionally, will be met with backlash from businesses and individuals already devastated by COVID-19. The reality in North Carolina, however, is that too many people continue to either doubt or dismiss the danger of COVID. While many businesses, restaurants and bars have become more attentive to COVID measures, too many are too crowded with people behaving as if it’s 2019.

A new stay-at-home order wouldn’t change the minds of many skeptics, but the evidence and science behind COVID restrictions are clearer now. Closing or limiting capacity of places where people from different households interact, especially indoors, helps reverse the upward trend of COVID-19.

Such measures, however, must be accompanied by relief for businesses and workers. We’re encouraged that a bipartisan group of U.S. House and Senate lawmakers have agreed to the outlines of a $908 billion COVID-19 relief plan that would offer expanded unemployment benefits ($300 for 18 weeks) and renew the Paycheck Protection Program for businesses. The plan also would provide funding for state and local government needs, including schools, vaccine distribution and food assistance.

COVID relief would ease the financial devastation caused by a stay-at-home order, should one eventually be necessary here. Cooper warned that such a step might be coming if North Carolina’s COVID-19 numbers continue to rise. “None of us want that,” he said.

He’s right. But while a vaccine is coming soon, its full effects won’t be realized until at least the spring. We need to confront COVID-19’s surge now, and we need to provide a bridge to businesses and workers through the hard weeks ahead.

This story was originally published December 8, 2020 at 12:01 PM.