One thing we need to understand about North Carolina is that it is, outside of college areas and 2 metropolitan areas, a conservative state. It has on occasion voted for a liberal president, but those elections happened when the Republican alternative was a pretty bad option.
However, conservative values dominate the landscape of the state for the most part.
A group calling themselves "Reopen NC" has descended on the capital of Raleigh for 5 straight weeks. They catch a lot of flack from the media for not social distancing and many people are not wearing any masks or other PPE but there is one thing that needs to be understood about the people in this camp. They don't believe the virus is as deadly as some people say it is... they don't believe it ever was.
While some of my friends will call me a fool for this, I tend to agree with them. I do not think that a virus with a undetermined "kill rate" with figures between a portion of a percent and up to 3% is something that everyone needs to stay locked up indefinitely to protect themselves from.
Therefore, I tend to identify with these protesters although once again I did not actually participate in the rally even though it is only a 2 hour drive from my house.
This doesn't mean that the entire population is on board with the protesters though. A man who is a counter protester, who believes that the government is taking the correct steps hired an airplane to fly a giant advertisement through the skies of Raleigh to send a message to the protesters below.
This is fine, it is expected that there would be some division on the subject.
It is difficult to tell what the majority of people in the state actually feel but just because my camp tends to believe it is time to re-open that doesn't mean that everyone feels that way. One thing is for sure though, Governor Cooper is really feeling the heat right now as the pressure mounts in an increasing way for the restrictions to be lifted and quickly.
North Carolina has had just over 17,000 cases that resulted in 641 deaths. But before we go bananas over that number we need to also understand that more than 2000 people die from the flu every year and North Carolina has magically seen its flu season numbers drop dramatically. This suggests (but doesn't prove) that either flu deaths are being misappropriated and labeled as Covid deaths, or the people who were dying from covid MAY have died from the flu anyway.
I don't know what to feel about these numbers and anyone who claims to already know is probably lying to a certain degree. We don't know enough yet.
However, North Carolina has just about had enough and these protests are actually illegal even though the police wont actually do anything to escalate the situation. Will we see any changes? Roy Cooper's office seems very hesitant to comment on the situation but his popularity is dropping in the state. It is looking more and more likely that he will be voted out come the 2020 elections.
We'll see. How do you feel about all this?