Lee County Board of Education Member Sherry Womack attended Tuesday’s ReOpenNC protest and told WRAL TV that COVID-19 cases will rise when Governor Roy Cooper’s stay-at-home order is lifted, but added that “you can’t stay in your house forever:”

“The very moment we open up, it will increase our numbers because we’ve all been in the house,” protester Sherry Womack said. “You can’t stay in your house forever.”

Womack, a Republican elected in 2016 who is seeking re-election this year, was not identified in the story as an elected school board member, but her voice is recognizable in an audio recording of the television broadcast.

 

Womack did not respond Thursday to a request to clarify whether her apparent position in support of “reopening” North Carolina includes public schools in Lee County.

Since Tuesday’s protest, there have been 35 new COVID-19 cases confirmed in Lee County, nearly doubling the local total from 45 to 80. That includes the 16 announced on both Wednesday and Thursday, the two biggest single day jumps since case tracking began.