Mecklenburg isn’t releasing COVID-19 test details. Why that matters to your health.

In Ohio and Florida, the government provides the public information about the ages and gender of people who have been infected with the coronavirus.

In South Korea and Japan, authorities have released information about citizens’ travels to help stop the spread of COVID-19, the illness caused by the new strain of coronavirus.

But in Mecklenburg County, the public has heard almost nothing.

As the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise, county officials have refused to reveal demographic data about people who have tested positive, locations where they may have contracted the virus or if they engaged in activities that brought them in close contact with the public.

Proponents say the facts can broaden public understanding of the virus and yield information that would tell people if they might have been exposed or if they fit the profile of those susceptible to becoming seriously ill.

The issue has pitted public health protection and citizens right to know versus personal privacy.

It is illegal under federal law to release a person’s name and private medical data.

But some government agencies, businesses and schools around the country have divulged details to the public without naming the person who is infected.

Wake County authorities alerted the public that a person tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a March 13 concert in Raleigh. Wake County health officials also have said that at least one person who attended a March 8 Lego festival tested positive.

The federal Transportation Security Administration has posted information on its website about more than a dozen cases in which airport screening employees have tested positive.

Mecklenburg County officials have withheld more information than legally necessary and likely missed opportunities to raise public awareness needed to halt the threat posed by the virus, said Jonathan Jones, a Durham attorney who specializes in open government law.

“There needs to be a balance,” Jones said. “Releasing information could increase anxiety and result in strain on the health care system, but no information creates just as much anxiety. We know somebody has it, but we don’t know how.”

In written responses to questions from The Charlotte Observer, the county said authorities have updated the community multiple times each week and will continue to do so until the crisis is over.

The county said officials are investigating each case in which a person tested positive for COVID-19 and has tried to alert those who might have been exposed to the virus.

They said they have not released information such as the person’s city, their age, occupation or where they might have become infected because they wanted to protect patient privacy.

When asked by reporters Thursday, local health officials said they are analyzing demographic data and said they would share some of it publicly. But it remains to be seen what will be disclosed and when.

That stands in contrast to OrthoCarolina, which revealed earlier this week that one of the physicians at its Hip & Knee Center in Charlotte had tested positive for COVID-19.

OrthoCarolina did not name the physician but said the person and all employees who had been in close contact with the person were in quarantine. The physician had no direct contact with patients at the office, said Blair Primis, the physician group’s senior vice president of marketing and talent management.

“We felt it necessary for both the safety and sanity of our employees and our patients,” Primis said. “And, yes, we were hoping it’d help raise awareness for the community.”

Little information

Even as testing for coronavirus ramps up across North Carolina, it is not publicly known how many tests are available or where tests are being conducted, according to a March 18 report by The Observer, The (Raleigh) News & Observer, WBTV and other partners.

At press conferences, Mecklenburg Health Director Gibbie Harris has provided scant information about cases where a person has tested positive, usually only saying if the person had been traveling before being tested.

Mecklenburg had 43 cases of the coronavirus as of early Friday afternoon. The county refused to say how many cases are under investigation.

That’s different than how Mecklenburg has handled other public health threats.

For example, Harris announced at a press conference Thursday that the county is looking into two tuberculosis cases. She said that in one case the county had contacted people who had been to Albemarle Road Middle School. The other tuberculosis case involved a person who participated Room in the Inn, a program in which homeless stay overnight in churches, Harris said.

In November 2018, the Mecklenburg County Health Department said more than 300 people got vaccinated after authorities announced a hepatitis A case at a south Charlotte restaurant.

Asked at Thursday’s press conference why details about positive tests for the coronavirus have not been treated the same way, Harris said there have been no COVID-19 cases in which a person posed similar risks to large numbers of people.

North Carolina state officials have not released demographics or other detailed information about coronavirus cases.

Public information vs. privacy

The California Department of Public Health posted information on the internet about 675 positive tests for COVID-19, including information about how many times the virus was transmitted person-to-person, during travel or through community spread.

In parts of Japan, the government has disclosed information about patients’ movements, including to gyms, restaurants and hospitals, according to a March 13 report by The Washington Post. Singapore has made public where patients have recently traveled, the report said.

But in the United States, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — the federal law commonly known as HIPAA — prohibits the release of medical records and other personal health information.

Brooks Fuller, executive director of the North Carolina Open Government Coalition and a journalism professor at Elon University, said some local officials are being cautious with information about coronavirus cases likely because they fear lawsuits or bad publicity.

Disclosing information could also send people needlessly rushing to doctors and hospitals and overwhelm the health care system, Fuller said.

But Fuller said that North Carolina law allows officials to disclose more detail than they have so far. The information could help residents learn about places to avoid and to fully understand why public life is grinding to a halt, he said.

“There is a middle ground that needs to be struck,” Fuller said. “Right now there is not a lot of consistency in what is being released.”

Earlier this week, Duke University announced that at least 15 people connected to the school who were traveling overseas had tested positive for COVID-19.

Michael Schoenfeld, vice president of public affairs and government relations for Duke, said the private university released the information to help promote public safety.

“This puts in bold and italics the reason for actions (society) needs to take such as not going to large gatherings,” Schoenfeld said. “If what we said had any role in getting people to follow the guidelines, it is a good thing to do.”

This work was made possible in part by grant funding from Report for America/GroundTruth Project and the Foundation For The Carolinas.

This story was originally published March 20, 2020 at 2:29 PM.