Durham Mayor to Issue Stay-at-Home Order Wednesday

DURHAM – Earlier this week Governor Roy Cooper said he was not considering a statewide shelter-in-place executive order, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t leaning on local elected leaders across the state to issue the same orders for their towns or counties. Mecklenburg County announced a three-week ‘stay-at-home’ order Tuesday, and Wednesday the City of Durham will be following suit.

From the notorious IndyWeek:

“[…] Durham Mayor Steve Schewel will issue a stay-at-home order at a Wednesday morning press conference, a City Hall source confirms. 

Last week, Schewel closed gyms, theaters, and rec centers as part of an effort to expand social-distancing efforts within the city. But he also lobbied the governor’s office to declare a statewide stay-at-home order, as governors have done in Washington, New York, and California. 

“I have been in regular touch with the governor’s staff, and I am urging the governor to issue a statewide shelter in place order. Reading about the lost opportunity to act early in Italy, and its devastating consequences, is very sobering,” Schewel told the INDY in a text message on Sunday. “Ideally, a shelter in place order should be a statewide or regional order. It is very hard to do locally because so many people are driving into Durham from all over the region every morning. Depending upon the governor’s actions on Monday, I may need to issue further local mandates as well, and I will not hesitate to do so to keep Durham safe.” […]”

Have you noticed how the language has changed? “Shelter-in-Place” sounds too scary, too ominous, too authoritarian; “Stay-at-Home” has such a warmer feel too it, though the implications are the same.

It is also clear that some local authorities are seeing the quarantine bandwagon seats filling up, and racing to jump aboard while there’s still room. The urge to not be the leader that let their guard down during a pandemic is understandable, but the true effectiveness of such lockdown policies at this stage in the Wuhan Virus game are not known. It is not known if this has an effect of depressing transmission, or if the clustering of families and roommates in their homes for weeks actually creates a more ideal environment for the virus to spread from among households, only to inevitably get out when people leave the home for allowable reasons.

We’ve been told for ages that warmer weather helps end the flu season because, among other reasons, people are no longer clustered in their homes passing the virus from kiddo to grandpa.

All the while, these policies are being enacted with near complete disregard for the constitutional rights we are all guaranteed.