Covid-19 trends in North Carolina are heading down, but state officials say the real test is coming soon.
As colleges and universities welcome students back to school, law enforcement officials across the state will be watching closely.
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper credits social distancing, the early shutdowns, a cautious re-opening, and face masks with bringing down the coronavirus numbers in North Carolina.
There is a clear correlation between those measures, Cooper says, and North Carolina avoiding the spike now happening in other southern states. That’s why people can expect to see increased enforcement of the mask mandate and limits on large gatherings.
"First, we are encouraging businesses to take control here. We think this is good for not only the safety of their customers and their employees – but it’s also good business for them. We’re encouraging people if you’re in a retail store and you see people not wearing masks or employees not wearing masks to tell the management… We want law enforcement to be more involved in this process."
But that doesn’t mean more arrests, says Cooper. It’s more about public education and, if necessary, citations.
Officials also say the number of daily Covid-19 tests is dropping. That’s the one metric they’d like to see go up, especially now that the turnaround time for test results is usually about two to three days.
