Meck says half of COVID-19 patients no longer in isolation. Here’s what that means.
About half of all people diagnosed recently with COVID-19 in Mecklenburg County have recovered and officially have been released from isolation either at home or in a hospital And experts say that rate of recovery is expected to grow long-term.
The Mecklenburg County health department has released recovery data for about 90% of the known coronavirus cases.
The data show that while 1 in 5 people were hospitalized for treatment, nearly half of those who tested positive were later released from isolation after their symptoms passed. The data is through April 9, when there were 869 lab-confirmed cases.
The number of new cases is currently rising more quickly than the number of people who are recovering, says Atrium infectious disease specialist Dr. Katie Passaretti. But in time, most people diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, are expected to survive and recover, she said.
“Time will give us a much better perspective on how it all plays out,” Passaretti said.
Mecklenburg County has seen at least 954 cases of the coronavirus, as of Sunday. And 12 people in the county have died.
Nearly 300 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in Mecklenburg County in the last week. That could be one reason the recovery rate may seem low, Passaretti said.
New cases are reported daily, but it will take patients at least a week to become eligible for being released from isolation requirements.
Mecklenburg’s criteria for releasing people from isolation includes requirements that it must be at least 72 hours since last symptoms, and at least seven days since symptoms first appeared.
And many people who have recovered from COVID-19 aren’t part of the county’s case total because they were never tested. In late March, North Carolina state health officials began asking people with mild symptoms to self-isolate, and not get tested in order to save testing supplies and to avoid spreading the illness to healthcare workers or fellow patients.
Coronavirus recovery data
There’s a lot experts still don’t know about COVID-19.
Passaretti said patients are most contagious when they are the most symptomatic. But it’s unclear exactly when patients are no longer contagious, she said.
Some people recover in a matter of days, but many others may take longer than a week, Passaretti said. Health data shows most people with the coronavirus will recover from the infection, she said.
And 80% or more or people will recover without major health complications, Passaretti said.
The other 20% of COVID-19 cases will see complications, but the majority of those patients will recover too, she said. In Mecklenburg County, health officials have said 20% of people diagnosed with coronavirus have needed hospitalization.
The outlook for recovery is good but people should still follow social distancing guidelines and stay-at-home orders, Passaretti said.
“That 20%, we want to protect them as much as possible,” she said.
“We do have responsibility to each other to all adhere to social distancing and good hand hygiene, making sure you’re staying home,” Passaretti said. “So even if at the individual level, you may come through it OK, your grandmother may not or your next door neighbor.”
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