GREENSBORO, N.C. — Governor Roy Cooper's latest ad highlights two of Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest's quotes on coronavirus. First: "Suggesting stay at home orders don't prevent deaths."
We found the video of Dan Forest saying this during an online townhall:
"There's no empirical data that says that a lockdown actually keeps you from having more deaths."
He made that statement on May 12.
But on May 5, one week earlier, researchers at Drexel University did release empirical data showing 4,320 lives were saved because of the stay-at-home order in Mecklenburg County alone.
Roy Cooper's ad about Dan Forest goes on: "even saying masks don't work"
On July 5 Blue Ridge Now posted this quote from Forest:
"There have been multiple comprehensive studies at the deepest level held to scientific standards in controlled environments that have all said for decades, masks do not work with viruses. That's why we've never used a mask for a coronavirus before, ever."
Forest's campaign manager sent us two articles that he says Forest was referencing. One from 2015 said there needed to be more "well-developed and carefully planned large-scale studies" to make see if masks worked.
The other is from May of 2020 and the authors put out a letter saying "We understand that some people are citing our Perspective article as support for discrediting widespread masking. In truth, the intent of our article was to push for more masking, not less."
We're also fact checking Dan Forest's ads. We'll bring you that on WFMYNews2.com as soon as it's done.
