Three weeks ago, to media reports of people fearing terrible outcomes as a result, on May 14 Gov. Roy Cooper surprised himself and the rest of us by lifting nearly all of his personal and business restrictions. He left the door to reinstating tyranny open a crack by keeping schoolkids forced into face masks and keeping North Carolina under a ridiculous “state of emergency.”
Despite the unquestioned (by media and others) notion that Cooper’s orders were what was holding back the tide of even worse virus outcomes, here are how North Carolina’s Covid numbers have changed in the three weeks since Cooper’s announcement. These are all based in smoothed, seven-day rolling averages, not single-day anomalies. They are dropping like Wile E. Coyote after looking down.
This is your emergency?
| May 14 | June 4 | Change | |
| New cases (7-day rolling average) | 1,262.9 | 502.1 | Down 60% |
| Hospitalizations (7-day rolling average) | 950.3 | 632.0 | Down 33% |
| Test percent positive (7-day rolling average) | 4.1% | 2.6% | Down 37% |
Meanwhile, deaths reporting continues to lag. The state Department of Health and Human Services has reported 50 “new” Covid deaths since Tuesday, when I last looked at those data for the Threat-Free Index.
Of those 50 deaths reported by DHHS since Tuesday, when did they take place?
- 4 since Tuesday
- 27 in May 16-31
- 3 in May 1-15
- 2 in April
- 3 in February
- 5 in January
- 3 in Dec 2020
- 1 in Sept 2020
- 1 in July 2020
- 1 in June 2020
