Opinion Roundup: NC reopens; revenue troubles; virtual graduations; guns and threats; vigilantes; and more

Monday, May 11, 2020 -- A round up of opinion, commentary and analysis on: COVID-19 and Medicaid expansion; N.C. reopens, sort-of; revenue troubles; virtual graduations and real grads; guns as fashion statements and threats; meat plant concerns; deputy arrested in vigilante incident; and more

STEPHANIE ARMOUR: Coronavirus Pandemic Renews Push for Medicaid Expansion in GOP-led States (Wall Street Journal reports) -- The coronavirus pandemic’s impact on the U.S. health-care system and economy is fueling renewed Democratic efforts in some states to expand Medicaid as millions of people lose their jobs and health coverage. Opposition to expansion has continued in other states. North Carolina lawmakers in April considered a limited expansion of Medicaid for uninsured people with coronavirus—state Democrats had been calling for a permanent expansion—but opted not to pursue the idea. Funding was to come from more than $1.5 billion in federal stimulus support Congress approved in March.

NC’s COVID-19 testing numbers are going up. But the state still ranks among the worst (N.C. McClatchy reports) -- North Carolina is testing a smaller percentage of its residents for the coronavirus than most other states, according to a national analysis of data. North Carolina ranks 43rd in the nation in tests per 1,000 residents, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation which analyzed data through May 7 from The COVID Tracking Project. The state has a result for 15.7 people per 1,000 — ahead of nine states or territories. North Carolina has about 10.5 million residents. The state has completed 178,613 tests as of 11 a.m. on May 8.

Tracking those infected people have contacted is key to slowing coronavirus (WRAL-TV reports) -- State leaders say a key tool in containing the virus will be increased contact tracing. WRAL Investigates examined what it entails- contacting and following up on anyone who had close contact with a person who tested positive for Covid-19.

Reopened stores take precautions during busy shopping weekend (WRAL-TV reports) -- It's been a busy Mother's Day weekend as shoppers made their way to stores reopening for the first time in weeks.

NED BARNETT: UNC survey has a bipartisan reopening message for NC’s governor: Go slow (N.C. McClatchy column) -- As scientists study how the coronavirus affects the body, Marc Hetherington is exploring how it is affecting the body politic. Hetherington, a political scientist at UNC-Chapel Hill, and a handful of other political scientists, have completed the first of a series of COVID-19 surveys measuring how Americans are responding to the pandemic and their willingness to take the steps needed to keep it in check. In North Carolina, the findings should reassure Gov. Roy Cooper that a great majority put protecting public health first and are convinced that the economy must be reopened gradually.

Affidavits: Sickened nurses watched their nursing home patients die ‘and die alone.’ (N.C. McClatchy reports) -- Sherri Stoltzfus says she learned that her Rowan County nursing home had its first confirmed case of COVID-19 the first week of April. Less than a week later, the head administrator of The Citadel Salisbury took part in a conference call to hear the results from the first round of comprehensive testing for the disease at her 160-bed facility. The results were stunning: The Citadel now had an epidemic within its walls. The number of confirmed cases among the home’s residents and employees had jumped from 1 to 96. In the weeks since, The Citadel Salisbury has been rocked by North Carolina’s worst nursing home outbreak of COVID-19. In sworn statements tied to a lawsuit against The Citadel and its corporate owner, six current and former nurses of the facility describe an operation enveloped by panic, chaos and disease.

States are killing pigs, chickens that COVID-19 keeps from the market. Could NC be next? (N.C. McClatchy reports) -- Harnett County farmer Tom Butler delivered 8,000 grown pigs to Prestage Farms this week, as he added another batch of 8,000 young pigs to his barns. Farmers who contract with the state’s big pork producers aren’t getting a lot of information about the coronavirus sweeping through the processing plants, Butler said. The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday at least 982 meat-processing workers have tested positive for the virus. None of the state’s 3,200 food manufacturing facilities have closed, and so far, no animals have been euthanized, or “depopulated,” state Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said.

Virus outbreak prompts temporary closure at poultry plant (AP reports) -- A Tyson Foods poultry plant in North Carolina is closing temporarily for deep cleaning after a coronavirus outbreak there.

Groups seek more protection for workers as COVID-19 cases at NC meat packing plants rise (N.C. McClatchy reports) -- Advocates for farm and meat processing plant workers called on Gov. Roy Cooper on Friday to require additional COVID-19 protections for plant employees. The N.C. Farmworker Advocacy Network, N.C. AFL-CIO and other groups want at least two weeks of paid sick leave for those testing positive or in quarantine; staggered bathroom and lunch breaks to lower the risk of contamination; and time-and-a-half pay for taking on increased risks.

KEMP BURDETTE: The industrial meat industry says its feeding America, but it’s also feeding the COVID-19 crisis (N.C. McClatchy column) -- The industrial meat industry exacts a high cost on human health under normal circumstances. It exacts an even worse cost in a crisis. We’ve seen that in hurricanes, where cesspools of hog waste have overflowed into our public trust waterways, and we’re seeing it now as COVID-19 sweeps through slaughterhouses and processing plants. North Carolina’s rapidly expanding industrial poultry industry, third-largest in the nation, and our industrial pork industry, No. 2 nationally, raise millions of animals in confinement in packed barns.

White House aides test positive for coronavirus, raising debate on masks in West Wing (N.C. McClatchy reports) -- Senior White House officials are debating whether to implement a mandatory mask policy for officials working in the West Wing after two close aides to President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence tested positive for the coronavirus. The two aides – Trump’s valet and Pence’s spokeswoman, Katie Miller – both were “in the West Wing quite a bit,” and have forced senior staff reluctant to wear masks in the workplace to reconsider, one senior administration official said. Miller has led the communications response for the White House coronavirus task force. She is married to Stephen Miller, the Duke U. grad who is one of the president’s closest aides and the main force behind his immigration policies.

How does North Carolina's reopening plan compare to South Carolina's? (PolitiFact/WRAL-TV) -- Neighboring states might not set out to reopen in tandem, but between commuters flowing back and forth, and businesses competing for customers, they can end up in the same place.

What's an essential business? Definitions diverge across NC (AP reports) -- Joe Tyson, 70, thought everything was going smoothly with the reopening of his family furniture store -- that is, until the Black Mountain police came knocking.

Franklin Graham Is Taking Down His N.Y. Hospital, but Not Going Quietly (New York Times reports) -- His critics accuse him of discriminating against L.G.B.T. people. “Just because I don’t agree doesn’t mean I’m against them,” he said.

CELIA RIVENBARK: Even a pandemic can’t deter telemarketers (Wilmington Star-News column) -- For some reason, I assumed Brian from sketchy “dealer services” would be using this time to stay home with his family pondering a change of career. Alas, I was wrong.

Very early results from NC coronavirus antibody study are in. (N.C. McClatchy reports) -- Wake Forest Baptist Health has released early results from fewer than 700 people in North Carolina’s first public study of coronavirus antibodies. As of Friday, 1,475 antibody test kits have been sent to participants and results have come back for 676 of them, according to results posted by Sen. Phil Berger and the study’s lead researcher, Dr. John Sanders of Wake Forest.

Researchers reviewing results for NC's first coronavirus antibody study (WRAL-TV reports) -- A COVID-19 prevalence study funded by the General Assembly reported its first results Friday. Researchers said that they've sent out 1,475 test kits and gotten results for 676. Antibodies were present in 2.2 percent, a result researchers said was "preliminary and should not be fully extrapolated to the broader population at this time, but certainly suggests a low seroprevalence in the Triad region." "Seroprevalence" means how common the virus is, based on blood tests.

Legislative fight coming over virus-related workers compensation claims (WRAL-TV reports) -- Business groups are pushing back against a bill pitched to make it easier for employees to win workers comp claims during the pandemic.

The Southern Democrat with the power to shut down Trump's convention (Politico reports) – N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper has got a doozy on his hands. He’s a Democratic governor, up for reelection in a Republican-leaning Southern swing state, pushing a go-slow approach to reopening the economy as protests intensify and neighboring states move quicker. But that’s just the start: How the first-term governor handles his state's reopening will likely dictate whether President Donald Trump and the Republican Party can forge ahead with a full-fledged convention in Charlotte this summer.

Voting to start in Asheville, WNC congressional runoff after coronavirus delay (Asheville Citizen-Times reports) -- Voting in a delayed Republican congressional runoff is now starting, as absentee ballots were being mailed out beginning May 8. Lynda Bennett of Haywood County and Madison Cawthorn of Henderson County are facing off June 23 in the 11th District second primary that was pushed back because of the pandemic. They were the first- and second-place finishers in a crowded 11-way GOP March 3 primary.

Deadline delay, downturn mean big hit to N.C. revenues (AP reports) -- North Carolina revenue collections fell dramatically in April, the state's chief bookkeeper says, as tax filing deadlines were delayed and commercial transactions slowed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Photos of armed demonstrators at North Carolina Subway draw national attention (N.C. McClatchy reports) -- A dozen people walked through downtown Raleigh Saturday afternoon with weapons and flags on the first full day of North Carolina’s Phase 1 — when some coronavirus-related restrictions have been loosened. While the group attracted some curious onlookers, they are getting even more national attention online, thanks to now-viral photos by photojournalist Travis Long and a meme of the protesters created by a woman in Ohio.

Protesters make their voices, and horns, heard over conditions at prison (WRAL-TV reports) -- Protesters calling attention to conditions inside state prisons took to the streets to voice their concerns and honk their horns at Central Prison in Raleigh.

Ex-Deputy Charged After Armed White ‘Mob’ Confronts Black Family (New York Times reports) -- A former sheriff’s deputy faces charges after “terrorizing” a black family in North Carolina as part of a large group of white men and women, some of whom were armed, in what appeared to be a case of mistaken identity, officials said.

New Hanover deputy fired, now facing criminal charges for role in Pender County ‘vigilante mob’ (Wilmington Port City Daily reports) --  A New Hanover deputy has been fired and faces criminal charges for his role in what has been described as an armed “vigilante group” that attempted to force its way into the home of a Laney High student, Dameon Shepard. The group came to his house looking for a Topsail High student who was somehow linked to a 15-year-old girl, reported missing around the same time of their arrival Sunday night.

Deputy accused of leading armed mob of vigilantes to black teen’s Pender County home, lawyer says now faces charges (N.C. McClatchy reports) -- Dameon Shepard, a high school senior in Pender County, was at home playing video games when a large group of people with guns — including a sheriff’s deputy — reportedly knocked on his door. Shepard is black. The group was entirely white. They were looking for a teenage girl who’d gone missing and mistakenly believed Shepard was a different person who knew her, according to James W. Lea, who is preparing to file a civil lawsuit on the family’s behalf, Port City Daily reported.

He stoked a racist and bloody massacre. A former NC Rep thinks his statue should say so (N.C. McClatchy reports) -- A former North Carolina representative wants historical context about a racist government coup to be added to the Josephus Daniels statue in downtown Raleigh. Former state Rep. Paul “Skip” Stam has asked the Raleigh City Council to add language to the Daniels statue, which sits in Nash Square across from the former offices of The News & Observer. Daniels, who died in 1948, was a publisher and editor of the paper. His family owned The N&O until McClatchy bought it in 1995.

Reopening our college campuses (Greensboro News & Record) -- For most of us, COVID-19 is an unsolvable puzzle. It forces social creatures to defy their nature. It tempts our patience. And it turns established ways of doing things inside out. But the UNC campuses aren’t merely services provided by the state, they’re assets. Training grounds. Centers of innovation. And an economic force. So UNCG Chancellor FrankGilliam is right. This won’t be easy. But it will get done. It must.

Welcome to a ‘real world’ turned upside down. NC college grads are scared, but excited. (N.C. McClatchy reports) -- Commencement marks the beginning of a new chapter. And no one really knows what’s to come.

NC Governor Sends Message Of Encouragement To Graduates (PATCH) -- As North Carolina entered the first weekend of its modified stay-at-home order, Gov. Roy Cooper offered words of encouragement to high school seniors who won't have a chance to participate in a traditional graduation ceremony.

Online learning to make limited return next year in Wake, statewide (WRAL-TV reports) -- A new state law requires schools to schedule five days of online learning next in the school year. In Wake County, school leaders say they're working to make sure it goes more smoothly.

Some Wake County librarians to serve as contact tracers (WRAL-TV reports) -- As part of the effort to slow the spread of coronavirus in North Carolina, some Wake County librarians will be taking on a new task.

AALIYAH BOWDEN: COVID pandemic derails graduations for NC’s college grads, but not their dreams (N.C. Health News reports) -- COVID circumstances delay their walk and make their futures uncertain, but this year's grads are still moving forward with their dreams.

UNC holds virtual graduation ceremony (WRAL-TV reports) -- UNC-Chapel Hill held a virtual celebration online so graduates and families can celebrate until it's safe to hold an in-person ceremony.

College Athletes Reflect On Promising Seasons Cut Short (WUNC-FM reports) -- The cancellation of college and professional sports across the state has impacted fans, stadium employees, nearby businesses, and others, but it might be most devastating for college athletes, some of whom will never get the chance to compete again.

Find a way to honor grads (Hendersonville Times-News) -- This year, high school seniors in Henderson County and across the nation are facing a disappointment that is, like so many things related to the pandemic, unprecedented. After working toward their goal for 13 years, these young people have had their final prize — a graduation ceremony with caps, gowns and “Pomp and Circumstance” — yanked out of their reach.

'This is our job': New nurses graduate Triad schools in middle of pandemic (Greensboro News & Record reports) -- Normally hands-on training had to be finished virtually and many will be working with temporary permits as the COVID-19 crisis has caused delays in test need to get a state license.

ANNE BLYTHE: NC dentists plan to reopen for routine care amid COVID-19 (N.C. Health News reports) -- After providing only emergency care for the past month, NC dentists plan to bring hygienists back to work for more routine oral health care.

TONY MECIA: Tryon Medical Partners deploys teams around the country to keep businesses open (N.C. Health N ews reports) -- A physician from the practice keeps an IKEA ‘go bag’ with N95 masks always at the ready, and she's ready to hit the road at a moment's notice.

CARES Act Marks $5.5 Million for NC Fisheries (Coastal Review reports) -- North Carolina’s seafood industry is marked to receive nearly $5.5 million in federal assistance to help offset losses related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bear paw print makes an impression on Outer Banks beach (AP reports) -- National Park Service rangers are telling beachgoers at Cape Lookout to be on the lookout for a black bear.

American Shad Restoration Efforts Continue (Coastal Review reports) -- American shad, once an important fishery in North Carolina, declined sharply in the late 20th century, but state and federal agencies are cooperating to restore their numbers.

The Death of James Jordan: What We Know (New York Times reports) -- Two men are serving life sentences in prison for the death of Michael Jordan’s father, James, in 1993. One has maintained his innocence, and the other is now under review for parole.

N.C. native stars in Netflix show 'Outer Banks' (AP reports) -- In the weeks since “Outer Banks” premiered on Netflix, Madison Bailey — a Kernersville native who is one the stars of the show — says she has “gotten a message from every person I can think of.”