Lifting social distancing policies at the end of April could have disastrous impacts for North Carolina, potentially tripling infections and doubling the risk of overloading hospitals, health leaders told reporters Monday.

With the COVID-19 pandemic shuttering K-12 schools across North Carolina, state leaders will soon consider ways to make up weeks of lost instruction time. But tourism advocates aren’t waiting to make their case for maintaining students’ traditional summer break.

North Carolina is home to more than 46,000 farms, but the pandemic has forced farmers to adjust to disappearing restaurant and wholesale accounts, shuttered farmers’ markets or strict rules for selling to customers.

Our winter of solitude began long before anyone had ever heard of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, social distancing, or “flattening the curve.”