Mecklenburg, with 382 cases, says older adults most likely to be hospitalized with coronavirus 

Week five of the coronavirus outbreak in North Carolina opened Monday with a steady rise in Mecklenburg County cases.

State health authorities say 382 people have had positive test results in the county. Early Monday, Mecklenburg County health officials said 333 of those are residents. The rest are cases of people who live elsewhere but who took a test in Mecklenburg and are counted in the county’s total by the state Department of Health and Human Services.

A statewide stay-at-home order by Gov. Roy Cooper goes into effect at 5 p.m., largely overlapping a similar order issued in Mecklenburg last week. The more restrictive rules of either order take precedence.

The virus was first reported in the state on March 3, and since then the number of cases has taken a steep upward curve. State officials reported 127 new cases in less than eight hours Sunday. On Monday, state data showed a total of more than 1,300 cases. More than 21,000 COVID-19 tests have been administered, state health officials have said.

Statewide, at least six residents who tested positive for COVID-19, the disease the virus causes, have died. That includes the first death in Mecklenburg, of a 60-year-old patient, on Sunday.

Mecklenburg County on Monday provided updated demographic data about 303 people who were diagnosed as of Saturday:

▪ About 75% of cases were adults between 20 and 59 years old.

▪ Younger adults account for most cases in all racial and ethnic groups except for non-Hispanic black people, in which 41% of cases were 60 or older and only 20% were between 20 and 39.

▪ About 20% of all cases resulted in hospitalization, but about half of the cases in people 60 and older were admitted to hospitals.

▪ About 21% of people have been released from isolation. That means at least three days had passed since symptoms such as fever had improved and it had been at least seven days since symptoms first appeared.

▪ Cases have been reported countywide, but the rate per 100,000 people has ranged widely among zip codes, from 9.8 to 42.1.

DHHS reported Monday that the median age of people who have tested positive in the state is 46. But two-thirds of patients who die are 65 and older, highlighting the risk to older residents.

While slightly more women than men have tested positive, five of the six deaths so far have been men.

North Carolina’s peak

Cooper’s stay-at-home order Friday, as well as Mecklenburg’s last Tuesday, are intended to prevent a surge of coronavirus patients swamping hospitals.

Dr. Mandy Cohen, the state health director, told reporters Monday that “you’re going to see (the governor’s order) having an impact in slowing the spread” of the virus.

Cohen didn’t directly answer questions about when the restrictions could show results or what further steps the state could take to enforce social distancing.

The department is working with data scientists at UNC, Duke University and Research Triangle Park to make sense of the models that are designed to plot likely trends, she said, and to tailor them to North Carolina’s conditions.

For now, she said, “We don’t know with precision what this is going to look like.”

About 40% of North Carolina’s 15,000 hospital beds are empty, based on a 64% response rate from hospitals, DHHS said Monday. About 23% of the 3,200 intensive care beds are empty.

While the state continues to work with hospitals to plan for a surge, Cohen said, “We feel like we have the capacity we need right now.”

Crowded Mecklenburg parks

Local officials have said they’re concerned about overcrowding in parks.

Crowds massed at Mecklenburg parks in warm, sunny spring weather this weekend. That worried public health director Gibbie Harris, who told reporters Sunday greater restrictions may be needed to enforce distance rules in outdoor spaces.

“You couldn’t social-distance even if you wanted to,” Harris said.

Mecklenburg’s stay-home order allows residents to visit parks and other outdoor spaces, but requires that they stay six feet apart. That’s proved to be a problem elsewhere across the state, as warm temperatures resulted in crowds at trailheads and parking lots.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most-visited national park, was among those that largely closed to visitors this month.

Mecklenburg park playgrounds and some other amenities are closed for now, while open spaces and trails remain open. County manager Dena Diorio said Sunday that park rangers had been deployed to help disperse crowds.

Novant Health on Monday announced tighter visitor restrictions at its N.C. hospitals.

The new rules restrict people giving birth to only one visitor in the room, in addition to hospital medical staff. The restriction likely impacts laboring patients who wish to have a birth doula or other support person present in addition to a spouse, partner or loved one.

Novant, like many hospitals, had already changed some visitation rules in response to the outbreak. On March 20, Novant had said only hospital patients under 18 or those in labor could have visitors except for end-of-life cases. That rule permitted laboring patients to have one visitor plus a second support person.

This story was originally published March 30, 2020 at 11:40 AM.