Gym Workers, Shut Down by Cooper Specifically Due to COVID-19, Denied Unemployment Benefits Because ‘Separation From Employment Not Due to COVID-19’

RALEIGH – Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest is saying exactly what become a common refrain for many of us over many months now: You can’t make this stuff up.

He’s referring to people who work at gyms — just one kind of the small-businesses that were arbitrarily and unilaterally shutdown by Governor Roy Cooper for months on end citing Pandemic Panic and the risk of spreading the coronavirus — being denied unemployment benefits because their joblessness apparently did not relate to COVID-19.

You can’t make this up. People who work at gyms were denied unemployment benefits by the Cooper Administration because their “separation from employment… was not due to COVID19.” #ncpol #ncga pic.twitter.com/BOohonImNs

— Lt. Gov. Dan Forest (@LtGovDanForest) September 8, 2020

We’ll say it again: You can’t make this stuff up.

Governor Cooper has kept gyms closed for months, until they forced his hand by opening anyway, specifically citing the coronavirus and labeling them viral hot spots on account of all the heavy breathing.

However, private, independently owned gyms have been finding ways to allow customers to work out and their business to get by. More than 500,000 ‘check ins’ at such gyms in North Carolina and not one case of coronavirus.

Of course, the totally Woke were quick to mock Forest, who is challenging the Dear Leader Roy Cooper for governor in November. However, the half-clever zinger didn’t resonate for very long.

That was me…I own a gym in Greenville NC…

— Rich Hooton (@RichBSI) September 8, 2020

Large swaths of 2020 have felt like the Twilight Zone. Unfortunately, we may be stuck in that zone of surreal for quite some time.