Laurel to the tough work of public school educators, particularly what they’ve been faced with in recent days.

With little notice, teachers and staff have been hard at work preparing an 18,000-student district for a shutdown with an uncertain end.

Gov. Roy Cooper has ordered that K-12 schools close for a minimum of two weeks, but there are still too many people failing to do their part to flatten the curve of the coronavirus. A prohibition on events of any size also is only as effective as the public’s participation. Meanwhile, the community’s largest grocery stores frequently have more than 100 people milling around one another in close proximity.

As of Monday, neighboring counties, including Cabarrus and Iredell, have seen cases of COVID-19, but there have been no local cases yet. And officials, including President Donald Trump, now say the outbreak could last until “July or August.”

Schools could remain closed for months, with educators continuing to prepare assignments for students.

While what comes next is not clear, except that educators have been and continue to be critical to our future. Teaching remotely will not be perfect, but our public schools need to continue to stimulate the minds of our community’s students.

Dart to the logic behind Rep. Ted Budd’s vote early Saturday against a coronavirus response bill.

Budd voted against a bill called the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which would have, among other things, required employers to provide paid sick leave and created a federal emergency paid leave benefits program. Those are particularly critical policy proposals because of the many workers who may hourly jobs without paid leave benefits.

Budd was one of just 40 Republicans and two North Carolina congressmen to vote against the bill, which passed by a bipartisan count. The Trump administration has also supported the bill. Budd’s reasoning was that the time given to digest the bill was too short, but he failed to later state whether there were any specific items with which he disagreed.

It’s fair to not want to vote for a measure without knowing what’s in it. Now, that Budd has had time to digest it, his constituents deserve to know whether Budd disagrees with the core components of the bill.

Laurel to the ongoing and future work by our state’s and community’s health care professionals, who continuing to treat sick patients while simultaneously dealing with an uncertain world around them.

For nurses and doctors with children in school, that means arranging childcare, treating patients with the usual gamut of sickness and injuries and making space and time to treat those who may have coronavirus.

We should all keep our neighbors and friends who work in the health care profession in our prayers and be willing to offer our help to them when it’s needed.