More restrictions coming from county?

Plus: Quit moping and go exercise: We have tips; Hospital coronavirus cases still low; Lupus drug in short supply; Who's ready for some video conference call bingo?

Mar 24, 2020

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A day after governor extends school closures and says hair salons must shut, commissioners convene emergency meeting

- Last call for hair care: Salons, barbershops, massage parlors to close by Wednesday at 5 p.m.

- Health director, county manager say warnings not heeded as cases grow

- County commissioners to hold emergency meeting today at 1:30 p.m. ‘to take any action as may be deemed appropriate’

- County manager says commissioners are ‘in tune’ with business concerns; would like landlords to ‘waive rent’ for small businesses

Gov. Roy Cooper on Monday said public schools will be closed until at least May 15, and he ordered barbershops, hair salons and massage parlors to close by Wednesday at 5:00. (Full executive order here.)

In other words, the last chance to get your hair done for weeks could be today or tomorrow — if you’re cool with somebody being so close to you. As one Ledger reader emailed Monday: “Looks like we’re just a couple of weeks away from knowing everybody’s true hair color.”

Expect heavy demand for hair dye, like at this Harris Teeter:

Meanwhile, while Cooper didn’t impose more severe restrictions, such as shutting additional businesses, Mecklenburg County might be about to enact some additional rules on its own.

At a news conference Monday, Mecklenburg health director Gibbie Harris and County Manager Dena Diorio said they think many county residents are failing to take the coronavirus threat seriously, and they seemed to imply that further restrictions could be coming.

The Observer reported Monday that several county commissioners are pushing for a stricter stay-at-home order. One commissioner told the paper “she recently witnessed people crowding together in a driveway in her south Charlotte neighborhood for a party despite warnings about how COVID-19 spreads.”

The Observer said:

[S]tates like Ohio, California, Connecticut and others have gone further by issuing “stay at home” orders that prohibit nonessential travel, force many residents to work from home and close all nonessential businesses. In most cases, people are still allowed people to leave home to get food, go to the doctor and exercise or walk their dogs.
Grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations and other vital businesses are usually allowed to continue to operate.

But does the county have that power, even if the state doesn’t order it? The answer is apparently yes, the article says:

North Carolina law does not specifically address whether local governments can unilaterally impose such “shelter in place” rules, said Norma Houston, an expert in emergency management law with the UNC School of Government.
But if local leaders establish a process through an ordinance and provide a “reasonable” justification, the law allows them to close businesses, block roads, limit the size of gatherings and take other steps “that achieve the same effect,” Houston said.

Several North Carolina towns have imposed curfews.

Commissioners have scheduled a meeting for 1:30 p.m. today to have a conference call with the governor and state officials and “to take any action as may be deemed appropriate.”

Effects on business: At the county’s news conference, asked by The Ledger if the county had heard from businesses concerned that government leaders are failing to consider the economic effects of further restrictions, Diorio said:

We are hearing from a number of businesses who are concerned about the economic impact to them if there is any kind of stay-at-home order. We certainly understand that. We do also think the public health decisions would have to drive whether we make that decision or not. It really is a mixed bag. I understand their concern.

She added that federal leaders are looking into ways to help small businesses and said the county and city would work together on pro-business initiatives, too. Asked later for specifics, Diorio says she would like to see “landlords waive rent for some number of months” for small businesses.

“We are very, very in tune with what’s going on with our business community,” Diorio said.

In an interview with The Ledger, commissioner Susan Harden said she’s heard from businesses pleading to be allowed to stay open, as well as from seniors who want more action taken: “Nobody wants to shut down businesses who are able to really very responsibly manage their business. We don’t want to do that. But the problem is that people aren’t taking the guidelines seriously. We’re trying to thread a needle.”

Charlotte’s gyms and yoga studios are closed, but you have plenty of options. Establish a routine and get at it.

Organizing a family workout, like one here at Piedmont Middle School last week, can replace the youth sports leagues and gyms that have closed. (Photo by Liza Whitmire)

By Tim Whitmire

No CrossFit, no YMCA or Mecklenburg County Aquatic Center. Youth sports shut down. Orangetheory and the yoga studios — all shuttered.

The runners are bragging about how great their sport is for #socialdistancing— and that’s great for them. But you’re not the type to just hop out the door for a 10-miler, and you know you’ve got to find a way to stay in shape, if only to maintain mental health amid all the uncertainty.

Or maybe you’re not really a workout person, but you realize that if you’re going to get through this COVID-19 thing, you’re going to have to balance time spent binging Netflix and Amazon Prime with something a little more active, even if it’s just a regular walk.

The Big Picture

The three precursors to successful workouts are:

Time
Venue
Motivation

When my friend Dave Redding and I launched the F3 movement of free men’s workout groups in Charlotte in 2011, we copied a model originated by our friend Jeff Guillebeau, who had been leading a Saturday workout at Freedom Park since 2006.

We scheduled F3 workouts early in the morning, removing competing commitments; we used public spaces; and we quickly saw that the friendships made at F3 were what kept guys coming back daily.

The pandemic has scrambled the places we can work out and cut us off from the fitness tribes we count on to motivate us.

The good news: these obstacles are molehills, not mountains. Use this time of enforced change to unleash your creativity and find new ways of staying fit that will make you stronger and build new bonds. All you really need to get and stay in shape are gravity, your body’s own mass and the natural and built environments.

The Family Workout

As we socially distance, the family is a logical workout group. All three of my teen-aged kids are home and barred from their usual fitness activities, so they’re natural partners. If you have younger kids, a family workout can get them out of the house, burn off energy and teach them that fitness is fun and important.

If you lack family members who are interested in or willing to work out, there’s a whole world of fitness-focused social media. Anyone who’s ever gotten kudos on Strava or competed in a Garmin challenge knows what I’m talking about.

And if you’re lacking creative inspiration or just don’t feel capable of designing your own workout, look to the Internet and social media — many places closed by COVID-19 are sharing virtual workouts you can do at home for free or a nominal cost. Orangetheory is sharing a daily “At Home” workout, my youngest son’s martial arts instructor posts a workout video each day on Facebook and my wife’s favorite yoga studio is streaming entire classes via video.

[More resources: “CLT Fitness Options Including 15+ Free Streaming,” by ScoopCharlotte]

But there’s no reason you can’t build your own workouts — and engage the whole family in the process.

spencerlueders

Neighborhood fitness games. #covid_19 #neighborhood #neighborshelpingneighbors @cltfitfam

March 21, 2020

Ledger reader Spencer Lueders wrote exercises in chalk in front of his house in Cotswold: “I may make a dozen of them this weekend as a neighborhood circuit. Others in nearby neighborhoods said they were going to adopt it, too.”

DIY Fitness

When designing a small group workout, you serve two masters. The workout should challenge everyone, but also not leave anyone behind. My rules for DIY workout construction are:

Limited by time or distance
A mix of cardio and strength
Scripted, yet flexible

Here are three favorite formats:

1. Tabata

Named after a Japanese sport scientist, Izumi Tabata, and now known more broadly as High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), these workouts mix short efforts that build strength and get your heart rate up.

Download a timer app to your phone (search for “HIIT” or “Tabata” in your app store; free versions often come with ads) to get started.

The best-known (and my preferred) Tabata format is four-minute “mini workouts” where you do eight sets of a single exercise, with each set composed of 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest.

A good warmup might be jumping jacks. The timer will beep for 20 seconds of jumping jacks, beep again for 10 seconds of rest, then 20 more seconds of jumping jacks, another 10 seconds of rest, and so on … through eight total sets.

Take a short break, let your heart rate come down and move on to your next four-minute mini workout.

If only doing Tabata, I typically aim to do eight mini workouts in a session. With short breaks between each 4-minute set, that takes around 45 minutes. If you’re new to Tabata or working your way into shape, you could start with four or six mini workouts.

Here’s an eight-exercise Tabata workout I did with my kids last week, along with my personal difficulty rating for each exercise.

Mountain Climbers (Tough)
Squats (Easy, can be Moderate if you hold a weight or sit at the bottom of the squat during the rest period)
Pushups (Tough)
Kettlebell Lifts (Moderate)
Plank (Easy)
Lunges (Moderate)
Burpees (Tough)
Core Exercise Rotation (Easy; at the start of each 20-second work set, the leaders calls out a different core exercise like flutter kicks, Russian twists or oblique crunches)

2. Rucking

Rucking is basically walking with extra weight in a backpack — anywhere from 10 to 50 pounds. You can use a dumbbell, a sandbag, a weight plate — even a stack of bricks — for your weight.

The fact that rucking is done at walking pace makes it lower-impact than running, easier to keep a small group together and wonderfully social. Even young kids can put a brick or two in a backpack, join Mom and Dad for a walk and be full participants.

It’s easy to work strength into the workout by stopping periodically for “pain stations” where you take the weight out of the backpack or just use the backpack with the weight inside as an implement for overhead presses, bicep or tricep curls, wall sits, etc.

My friends at GORUCK use rucking as a “gateway drug” for all kinds of endurance challenges that are enjoyed by an enthusiastic subculture of ruckers. The challenges of the current workout environment may be rucking’s moment to break into the mainstream.

3. AMRAP Circuits

AMRAP stands for “As Many Reps As Possible.” The idea is to script a circuit in your yard or somewhere else that everyone can move through at their personal pace, attempting to complete the loop as many times as possible in the allotted time.

Here’s where the built environment can make things fun. Find a parking deck with stairwells (many of them are pretty under-utilized right now) or a soccer or football field or high school track. Script the circuit beforehand, set a timer for 30, 45 or 60 minutes, and let everyone loose.

For an 8-level parking deck, you might have people climb the stairs, do 10 burpees at the top, descend and do 20 crunches at the bottom. Wash, rinse, repeat until time runs out.

On a track, you could space stations out around the oval, so that participants have to run in between each one. You could do 10 pushups in one corner, 20 squats halfway down the front straightaway, plank for a minute at the start of the turn, 30 walking lunges into the turn, say, 10 burpees at the other end of the turn, sprint the 100 meters on the backstretch straightaway, then 20 crunches at the start of Turn 3 and run backwards through the turn, which brings you back to the corner where you started with the pushups. That’s one circuit.

Again, you’ve limited the workout by time, mixed strength and cardio work, and scripted it for interest, while leaving it flexible for everyone.

If you have other ideas or things you’re trying right now, please speak up in the comments and share with other Ledger readers. And be sure to post your workouts — and family photos — to Strava, Instagram and elsewhere as motivation and inspiration for others in these challenging days!

Tim Whitmire is a contributing editor of the Ledger, co-founder of F3 Nation and founder of CXN Advisory, which supports organizational leaders in goal-setting and execution.

Squats and burpees: a Whitmire workout in the family’s front yard in the Elizabeth neighborhood. (Photo by Tim Whitmire)

Today’s supporting sponsor is Fionix Consulting. With 25+ years of experience in crisis and corporate communications, Fionix Consulting creates custom strategic communications solutions to reach — and exceed — your business outcomes:

Still low numbers at Charlotte hospitals

Although the number of coronavirus cases keep rising, Charlotte hospitals have not been overwhelmed with patients — at least not yet.

At a news conference Monday, Mecklenburg health director Gibbie Harris and County Manager Dena Diorio said that only one of every eight local patients who tested positive for the coronavirus has required hospitalization — and not all of those are still in the hospital.

As of mid-day Monday, Mecklenburg had 97 confirmed cases. That implies that about 12 county residents have required hospitalization, although local hospitals also care for patients from outside of Mecklenburg, officials said. Atrium Health and Novant Health have nearly 2,200 acute-care beds in Mecklenburg County, according to state figures. They are usually full, but the hospital systems have been postponing elective procedures to create bed space to accommodate a predicted increase in patients.

In brief

Lupus drug shortage: Pharmacies in North Carolina are starting to run short of hydroxychloroquine, a potentially life-saving lupus drug, because doctors are writing prescriptions for it based on its potential to fight COVID-19. The N.C. Pharmacy Board “said the prescriptions are being written for the health care providers themselves, or for family members or others who have not been exposed to the virus. The board, along with the N.C. Medical Board and the state Department of Health and Human Services, are considering rule changes to stop the practice.” (N.C. Health News)
Stranded: “Coronavirus lockdown traps Charlotte-area student in Italy” (Observer)
Free transit, but less of it: The good news is you can now ride light rail and buses in Charlotte for free. The bad news is CATS is slashing the frequency of public transit, converting to a weekend schedule throughout the week. (Observer)
What do you call a group of three South Carolinians? South Carolinas governor has given police more discretion to break up groups of three or more people. “It would apply to parties on the beach, to boisterous gatherings or concerts, to spontaneous gatherings or unruly gatherings in shopping centers, parking lots,” Gov. Henry McMaster said. It would not apply to law-abiding businesses. (The State)
Grocery sale: Earth Fare, which closed its stores and filed for bankruptcy protection last month, plans to sell four of its 50 stores to Winn-Dixie, two to Whole Foods, one to Aldi and four to a company called DJ3 Delaware, according to bankruptcy documents filed Monday. None of the stores is in Charlotte. It reached an agreement with landlords of six stores, including the one in Ballantyne, to terminate leases. Earth Fare said it did not receive bids on its remaining stores. A Ledger reader wrote in the other day with the following story idea: “Ask the Earth Fare CEO if they regret filing for bankruptcy like two weeks before the greatest run for groceries in a generation.” (Full court filing on Ledger website)

By the numbers

As more of the local economy shuts down, here’s a look at the sectors where people work.

Mecklenburg County employment, by sector, 3Q 2019:

Source: N.C. Department of Commerce

Don’t you wish you had stock in Zoom

A crisis like the one we’re living though creates winners and losers. Examples of people and companies hurting are all around us.

But who is one of the big winners? Zoom, the video chat company.

While the rest of the stock market is busy cratering, with indexes down roughly 30% on the year, Zoom’s stock is up 165% year-to-date. It hit a new high Monday.

“Following the COVID-19 outbreak globally, conferencing companies have seen a significant increase in app downloads and usage the past few weeks from elevated work from home activity,” a KeyBanc analyst said, according to The Street. Yeah, no kidding.

Charlotte on the Cheap has a handy step-by-step guide — with screenshots! — of how to use Zoom and Google Hangouts.

Loves me some internet: conference call bingo

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The Charlotte Ledger is an e-newsletter and web site publishing timely, informative, and interesting local business news and analysis Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, except holidays and as noted. We strive for fairness and accuracy and will correct all known errors. The content reflects the independent editorial judgment of The Charlotte Ledger. Any advertising, paid marketing, or sponsored content will be clearly labeled.

Editor: Tony Mecia; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire

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