Could another COVID-19 lockdown be around the corner?

With North Carolina’s record-setting COVID-19 cases, could another lockdown be around the corner?

WRAL News reached out to the governor, state health officials and others to get a sense of where they stand with these in enormous case numbers, but didn't hear back.

Just 10 days ago, state Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen told state lawmakers that, "There are aspects of omicron that are very concerning, but I don’t see lockdowns or closures in the state’s future.”

At that time, though, Cohen expected a peak of just 10,000 new cases a day with omicron. On Thursday, the state hit nearly twice that number.

Businesses like Raleigh's Trophy Brewing and Pizza say they're bracing for whatever comes next, even exceeding COVID-19 guidelines in some cases.

"I think at this point we're just waiting to see what happens," said Trophy Brewing general manager Tabitha Swinson. "We are still requiring people that have tested positive to get a negative test before they come back to work."

But experts say, even without a lockdown, businesses, schools and more could be forced to close anyway as staff become ill.

Right now, Duke vaccine experts say masks are the best line of defense.

"Every indication is that this does not cause more severe disease, it just makes more people sick. So that has these other societal issues, rather than our hospitals are necessarily going to fill up with with really sick people," said one doctor. "As a healthcare worker we have to mask here in our hospital. So I feel fairly safe with those strategies."