Mecklenburg County Public Health Director Gibbie Harris issued a directive Tuesday encouraging all county residents to stay home except for essential activities for the next three weeks in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The directive comes as North Carolina remains under a statewide 10 p.m. curfew and mandatory face mask requirement, and appears to mimic a secretarial directive issued last week by state Health Secretary Mandy Cohen.
It's unclear whether recommendations under either directive are enforceable by law or have any penalties.
Harris’ directive has one significant difference: It specifically mentions schools when it says to “utilize full-virtual options for work, school and other activity where in-person activity is not required.”
The directive was issued about an hour before the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board was scheduled to meet to discuss having students return to in-person learning next week.
At that meeting, board chair Elyse Dashew announced that CMS would reconvene for an emergency meeting Thursday at 10 a.m. to discuss and vote on the return to in-person classes.
Plot twist: Emergency @CMSboard meeting Thurs 10 a.m. to consider changes to return-in-person plan. So ... reports, discussion but no action tonight.
— Ann Doss Helms (@anndosshelms) January 12, 2021
Mecklenburg County is averaging 900 COVID-19 cases per day, and the most recent positivity rate in data released Tuesday was 15.5%. That’s up from 10.9% in early December.
“The exponential growth in the number of COVID- 19 cases, hospitalizations and related deaths require immediate action on the part of every member of our community,” Harris said in a statement.
Other actions cited by Harris that should be taken include: avoiding leaving home if you are over 65 or at high risk for developing serious illness, avoiding any non-essential travel and avoiding gathering with anyone you do not live with.
The full directive can be found here.