Asheville to Begin to Re-open

The last word so far from Gov. Cooper is that he is optimistic that his loosening (but not repeal) of the stay-at-home order will happen as scheduled on May 9. Buncome county, where Asheville is located, says it's ready.

The primary change under Cooper's first phase will be an allowance for limited retail operations. The stay-at-home order will remain in place, but people can leave home for more commercial activities.

Under the governor's plan, Phase 1 would continue for a minimum of two to three weeks. If data trends look promising, the state would move into Phase 2, which includes the lifting of the stay-at-home order and a limited reopening of other businesses and churches with reduced capacity....

“We know that as we increase testing and loosen restrictions we will undoubtedly see an increase in cases," he said. "The goal is to slowly reopen in a deliberate, methodical manner so that the increases in cases is manageable and never overwhelms our local health care systems. We will be monitoring our case count and other important data trends and metrics very closely to anticipate any surge.”

If the reopening begins and there is a spike in cases, health officials will take steps to reimplement restrictions.

So by the end of the month, we still won't be where Georgia was two weeks ago -- at least not on paper. We may at least be liberated from an order that we remain home (with a laundry list of exceptions making such an order nearly pointless).

Cooper's in a difficult position, to be fair. Northam in Virginia has leeway because it is two years before he's up for re-election.
Cooper has to face the voters in November. His core constituency is much more in favor of restrictions than others. If anything goes wrong he will be blamed for re-opening too soon by urban middle-to-upper class Democrats and government/public-union workers; if he doesn't re-open, rural voters will swing heavily against him even if they are normally Democrats. His Republican opponent can run heavily against him in favor of re-opening without consequence, since he won't be blamed if things go wrong. He can simply say that Cooper's team botched something.

On the other hand, Cooper is the master of his fate. He will get credit for things if they go smoothly, and his opponent won't be able to do more than criticize from the sidelines. For all the talk about how this is health and data driven, political calculations play a huge role; perhaps the decisive role.