New Facebook group counters calls to quickly reopen NC during virus outbreak

“'ll be honest, and I'm not proud of it,” Mullins said Friday. “It was out of frustration.”

Mullins decided there needed to be a counterpoint to ReOpenNC, which started as a Facebook group, with his own Facebook group: KeepNCSafe.

"Here we are eight days later with 4,000 people," he said.

ReOpenNC has about 68,000 followers.

"I don't pretend to know how that many people have that viewpoint," Mullins said.

He admits the group was initially called KeepNCClosed, but he rebranded it after realizing his goal isn't different than ReOpenNC's, just his methods are.

“We want to reopen, absolutely, but safely,” Amy Paur, one of the group's administrators said. "We have to do it smartly. We have to do it where we're not going to cause a resurgence of COVID-19."

Both Mullins and Paur are out of work during the pandemic. She is a chemist, furloughed from her job at an engineering firm in Apex, while he is a photographer who often shoots large events.

"For my personal stake,” he said, "my work isn't going to return to normal until we're past phase three."

"Safely, quickly open North Carolina, but the focus is on safety," Paur said.