Mecklenburg County tops 200 coronavirus cases as stay-at-home order takes effect

Emergency alerts sounded on cellphones across Mecklenburg County on Thursday morning just before a stay-at-home order took effect at 8 a.m., as coronavirus cases continued to rise.

Mecklenburg now has 204 cases, up from 170 on Wednesday, officials with the county and the state Department of Health and Human Services reported Thursday. The statewide total reached 636, up from 504 cases on Wednesday.

State health officials acknowledge that the daily counts, despite their fast rise, don’t fully reflect how fast the infections may be spreading across North Carolina.

The virus claimed its first two deaths in North Carolina on Tuesday and Wednesday, both in Cabarrus County. A third death, in Harnett County south of Raleigh, was reported Thursday.

In South Carolina, nine deaths have been reported, including that of lobbyist Jack West, the son of the late Gov. John C. West.

For the next three weeks, the Mecklenburg stay-at-home order will pit the need to protect the public from the spreading coronavirus against the necessity of making a living.

The stakes are rising on both counts. A record number of Americans have already lost their jobs, data released Thursday show, eclipsing even the losses of the Great Depression. A Harvard University analysis, meanwhile, shows that Charlotte could run out of hospital beds for coronavirus patients.

The county order will keep workers whose jobs aren’t considered “essential services” at home and limit travel to necessities, such as trips to grocery stores, pharmacies and healthcare providers.

It’s intended to head off a surge of cases that could swamp hospitals and to enforce pleas that people voluntarily avoid gatherings. Cabarrus, Wake and Buncombe counties were among communities issuing similar orders Wednesday.

The Charlotte area might need about twice as many hospital beds as it currently has, according to ProPublica’s reporting of the Harvard analysis. That’s if 20% of those who are infected become hospitalized and the infections are spread over six months, the analysis said.

Local hospital systems say they’re taking steps to deal with a surge in coronavirus patients, including reducing elective procedures, but that lags in testing make it hard to know how many beds will be needed.

Charlotte’s two biggest hospital systems had urged Mecklenburg County to enact its stay-at-home order this week.

“Our predictive models show that we have hours, not days, to flatten the curve in a way that does not overwhelm critical services,” Atrium Health CEO Eugene Woods and Novant Health CEO Carl Armato wrote the county manager Monday. “Each hour that passes, more and more residents are coming into contact with others.”

On Thursday, the large, Raleigh-based hospital system WakeMed urged Gov. Roy Cooper to issue a statewide order that people stay home, Raleigh’s News & Observer reported. The N.C. Health Care Association, a lobbying group for North Carolina’s hospitals, urged the governor to take that action earlier this week.

Cooper is exploring all his options, a spokesman said.

“The governor has been clear that strong action is necessary to protect North Carolinians and that decisions must be made deliberately on the advice of state health officials and medical experts, “ Cooper spokesman Ford Porter said. “As the governor said yesterday, the state will be issuing additional guidance in the coming days.”

But abruptly changing habits, whether avoiding other people or remembering personal hygiene in the age of coronavirus, isn’t easy.

Mecklenburg County public health director Gibbie Harris took to Twitter on Thursday to admit that she herself doesn’t always abide by health directives. Harris acknowledged that she’d been seen pushing her eyeglasses up, rubbing her eyes and licking a finger to turn a page — all contradicting advice not to touch the face.

“These are all hard habits to break, and I have to work on them just like everybody else does,” she said in a video posted on Twitter.

Unemployment claims skyrocket in North Carolina

While Cooper has so far resisted ordering North Carolinians to stay home, he’s already ordered bars, restaurants and some other businesses to close or restrict operations.

National unemployment figures released Thursday starkly underscored the economic impact of such orders.

More than 3 million Americans lost their jobs in the week between March 14-21. Even during the height of the Great Recession in 2009, job losses rarely exceeded 500,000 in a single week.

Between March 16 and Thursday, North Carolina workers filed 200,000 new unemployment claims — a year’s worth of job losses condensed into the span of a week and a half, the News & Observer reported.

Charlotte’s beloved science museum, Discovery Place, has temporarily laid off 75% of its staff as it and arts nonprofits reel economically from the virus.

Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles has said that local funding will supplement the $2 trillion stimulus bill the U.S. Senate passed Wednesday night. Options being considered include a reduction of property taxes, she said.

“Everything is on the table,” Lyles said, noting that the hospitality sector is taking the brunt of the immediate economic impact caused by the coronavirus.

Number of COVID-19 cases locally

Cases reported by Thursday in the Charlotte region: Catawba County had five new cases, giving it a total of nine; Union County, 27; Gaston County, seven; Iredell County, 13; Rowan County, 12; Cabarrus County, 21 cases including two deaths. York County, S.C., had 18 cases as of Wednesday, news outlets reported.

A Cabarrus resident in his 70s died of complications of coronavirus on Tuesday, state officials said. The man, who was not identified because of federal privacy laws, had several underlying medical conditions, officials said.

A second patient, from Virginia, died at a Concord hospital Wednesday while traveling, officials said. Family members identified him as Landon Spradlin, 66, of Gretna, Va. Family members told Roanoke TV station WDBJ that Spradlin had suffered from bronchitis and asthma.

A Harnett County patient in their late 30s who was also afflicted with an underlying medical condition has died of complications from COVID-19, the Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday.

This is a developing story. Check back for more details.

This story was originally published March 26, 2020 at 11:37 AM.