NC’s statewide order to stay at home is met with compliance, but also some confusion
On a normal Tuesday afternoon, the outdoor tables at Starbucks’ Cary Towne Center mall location would be crowded with students from the nearby high school, and the drive-through would be backed up several cars deep.
But Tuesday wasn’t normal, and on the first full day of North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s pandemic-induced statewide stay-home order, the umbrellas ruffled in the breeze but the tables had been whisked away. The coffee shop door was locked and the soft rock coming through an outdoor speaker played to an empty patio. A car came to the drive-through about every five to 10 minutes.
To Rob Dobyne, it looked as if people were taking seriously the state’s order to stay home unless their jobs required them to go out or they had to leave the house to fill basic needs such as groceries or medical needs.
Dobyne, a nurse at a Duke-affiliated surgical center in Durham, and Poppy, his 3-year-old black lab-pit bull mix, were in strict compliance, doing a lap through the empty mall parking lot for exercise and fresh air.
Where he works, Dobyne said, all elective surgeries have been suspended, but the staff continues to come to work, reorganizing materials and keeping the center in good shape.
“Everybody’s worried,” Dobyne said. “You do what you can to protect yourself.”
Until effective medical protocols are developed, epidemiologists say the best protection from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, is physical separation from anyone who might have it, including those who are infected and don’t know it.
Life under new rules
Cooper’s 30-day order, which took effect at 5 p.m. Monday, is an expansion of earlier measures. Under the new rules, gatherings of more than 10 people are banned, and businesses that would bring together larger groups in close proximity are therefore closed.
The governor’s office has said “essential” businesses can stay open, and those include restaurants providing take-out, drive-through or delivery food; ABC stores and wine shops; healthcare providers and pharmacies; hardware stores; post offices; office-supply stores; convenience stores; gas stations; car dealerships; veterinarians and pet-supply stores; hotels; airlines; transportation services and houses of worship.
On its first day, the order appeared to have cut down on in-person shopping and errand-running; Dobyne said he had encountered half as much traffic Tuesday as he was seeing on daily walks last week.
There were several dozen cars in each of the the parking lots at Target, Home Depot and Lowe’s Home Improvement stores in the Crossroads shopping area, but fewer than a regular workday. Inside Lowe’s, a recorded message played periodically to remind customers to keep their distance from one another while shopping and waiting in line at the registers.
The stores installed plastic shields at the registers last week to keep workers and customers from breathing on each other, and X’s mark the floor in blue tape at 6-foot intervals in the checkout lane.
Michael Pumphrey of Raleigh visited the store Tuesday, and said he’s been in every Lowe’s in the area lately buying up plastic sheets to build similar shields at the registers of a whole chain of local convenience stores. The shields hang from the ceiling at face level, with space underneath to make payments and return change.
Pumphrey said he’s taking precautions, but wonders if he has already had COVID-19. In December, he went with family members on a cruise to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The ship, carrying some 4,000 passengers, came and went from a port in Miami.
Two days after they got back, but before he had ever heard of the coronavirus, Pumphrey said he and his sister came down with hacking coughs, fever and chills.
Pumphrey said he has been surprised by the numbers of people who flocked to home-improvement stores right up until the statewide stay-home order went into effect.
“I understand this might be a good time to do some home projects,” he said. “But, come on. You couldn’t even find a place to park.”
Who defines what essential is?
The definition of “essential business” may be inconsistent. A Hobby Lobby store in Raleigh was allowed to stay open, and a clerk who answered the phone said the store had argued that sales of craft and fabric supplies to students fill an educational need, which is considered essential. The store was admitting 10 customers at a time. But Joanne Fabrics in Cary was told it could not stay open or even fill online orders curbside, a clerk there said.
Some government entities in the state already have deemed Cooper’s order insufficient to restrict movement and control the spread of COVID-19, and have enacted stricter rules of their own. In Watauga County, in the mountains, an order was set to take effect at 5 p.m. Monday requiring all residents who have spent a night away, and non-residents arriving for overnight stays, to self-quarantine for 14 days or until seven days after symptoms of illness have resolved, whichever is longer.
Sarah Walker, who lives in Apex, said traffic in her town there was noticeably thinner on Tuesday compared to recent days. She takes a walk at least once a day, pushing her 17-month-old son, Leo, in a stroller. They were the only people visible on Salem Street at midday Tuesday.
Walker, an X-ray technician at a local hospital, said she welcomed the restrictions.
“I worry about people not taking it seriously enough,” she said. “If people don’t stay home, then it’s not going to get any better.”
This story was originally published March 31, 2020 at 4:41 PM.
