Above: Governor Roy Cooper’s press briefing from Monday, May 18.
NORTH CAROLINA — Governor Roy Cooper’s three-phase reopening of the state is still in Phase I which means the state stay-home order is still in effect but some restrictions have been eased. While the first phase could expire on Friday, Cooper said it will come down to the numbers and trends when deciding when to enter Phase II.
Cooper did say he was hopeful that the state can move forward into Phase II on Friday.
“We should be able to announce something by this week, mid-week as to what is going to happen on Friday,” Cooper said.
Phase II would be a significant change in the way life is conducted in the state as restaurants and bars would be permitted to reopen and the ‘stay-home’ order would be lifted.
However, this past week the state saw its largest jump in day-to-day cases of Covid-19, according to NC Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen.
“We saw our largest single-day increase of Covid-19 cases to date,” she said, citing an increase of 853 cases from Friday to Saturday.
Cohen did acknowledge that while the state has ramped up testing, it was expected that we would see more cases — and it has. That is why a key metric the state is using to determine when it is safe to move forward is the percentage of positive cases compared to the number of tests conducted. That number has remained steady for the last week, Cohen said, at around 7% (down from around 12-15% this time last month).
Cooper said he is hopeful to move forward into Phase II this Friday, reopening the economy (to an extent) just in time for Memorial Day Weekend. Cooper will likely make that decision and announce it later this week to ensure businesses are aware of expectations under Phase II.
