As coronavirus leads to shelter-in-place elsewhere, Wake, Durham leaders weigh options
Some cities around the country have already ordered residents to shelter-in-place, and it could be coming to North Carolina, too. It’s an option that’s “on the table” for Wake County. Other Triangle leaders are considering it, too.
Earlier this week, Mecklenburg County’s public health director said a shelter-in-place order to limit the spread of the coronavirus may be necessary “more quickly than we like,” but the county manager said Thursday there are “no plans at this time” for such an order.
Wake County Emergency Operations Center Manager Darshan Patel said shelter-in-place is standard methodology for public health and an option if Wake County needs to “aggressively do some social distancing.” Because that’s such an aggressive method, he said, they won’t do it lightly.
Wake County leaders have been in touch with San Francisco leaders, who ordered residents there and in other Bay area counties to shelter-in-place, impacting millions of residents.
Patel said Wake County’s emergency operations center has discussed shelter-in-place as a potential action, but not one to do yet. They’d work with public health and the county commissioners’ chair to make a decision. He emphasized it wouldn’t be done lightly because it restricts people’s movement, even though there are exceptions for health, food and other reasons.
Counties are learning from their peers how to best implement shelter-in-place and other strategies, Patel said. Wake and some of its towns would need to consider that they are both urban and rural.
He said ordering a shelter-in-place by just the county for unincorporated areas would be a decision by Wake County Commissioners Chair Greg Ford, who has already placed the county under a state of emergency. The city of Raleigh and the county’s several towns, including Cary, would decide themselves, but they hope to do it “in a coordinated fashion,” Patel said. County and municipal leaders are coordinating daily during the COVID-19 crisis.
“All our communities are interconnected,” he said. “Any restriction on people does cause concern.”
Durham and Chapel Hill considering
Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger told The News & Observer via email that the town is not considering shelter-in-place yet, “but things are changing daily/hourly.”
“We meet virtually a couple times a day; we have updates via Metro Mayors and National Mayors organizations. This is an ever evolving situation,” Hemminger said.
Durham Mayor Steve Schewel told The N&O via email the option of sheltering in place “should definitely be considered very seriously on a daily basis.”
Schewel said Durham County health public officials and the people administering tests at Duke Hospital have not yet found any “community spread” of the virus.
“That is, all cases in Durham have been connected to people having traveled from elsewhere. There have been no identified cases where the person testing positive got it from an unknown person in Durham. County health officials say that when such community spread is identified, that is when they will consider sheltering in place,” Schewel said.
Gov. Roy Cooper said Thursday that a case in Wilson County is the state’s first confirmed case of community spread. Cooper also told reporters on Thursday that he is not ready to order a statewide shelter-in-place.
Schewel said the problem is that with little testing, they don’t know how much community spread they may actually have in Durham right now.
“As more and more people are tested, we will find out more. Duke is increasing its testing significantly very soon,” Schewel said.
He said he’s waiting anxiously for more information as more tests are conducted.
What does shelter-in-place mean?
State health director Dr. Elizabeth Cuervo Tilson told reporters on Wednesday that “we’re continuing to figure out what we need to do” and haven’t made any decisions yet about shelter-in-place directives in what she called a “rapidly evolving situation.”
Norma Houston, a UNC School of Government lecturer and expert in emergency management law, said in a recent blog post that a county or city under a state of emergency is also authorized to control the movement of people in public places, including implementing curfews, road closures and evacuations.
Patel said a detailed shelter-in-place plan already exists in case it’s needed for Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant in New Hill. Other reasons for a shelter-in-place order could be police activity in an area, or a hazmat leak, he said.
There is not a specific number of coronavirus cases that will cause the county to decide on a shelter-in-place order.
“There is no hard trigger. We would look to our public health officials to guide that direction,” Patel said. What they are looking at is containment strategies should they start to see widespread community transmission.
If it happens, Wake County would enforce it if they see people continuing to gather for reasons other than for food and other exceptions.
Social distancing and measures already taken by the state — like Cooper’s executive order banning mass gatherings and his shutdown of dine-in restaurants and bars — were all done “to slow this virus.”
“We are trying to flatten the curve,” Patel said.
This story was originally published March 19, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
.jpg)