Mecklenburg coronavirus cases top 1,000. Daily reports of new cases fluctuate.

The coronavirus outbreak passed a grim milestone in Mecklenburg County on Wednesday, topping 1,000 positive tests for COVID-19, the disease that so far has killed 19 people in the county.

County health officials reported 1,052 cases, up 59 from the previous day after only 18 new cases were reported Tuesday. Three new deaths were also reported.

Despite the sharp rise in reported cases Wednesday, state and local health officials say the rate at which the virus spreads is slowing as the effects of social distancing take hold.

“We’re flattening the curve and fewer people are getting sick at the same time,” Secretary Mandy Cohen of the state Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday.

Statewide, 5,123 cases and 117 deaths have been reported, DHHS said Wednesday. The number of North Carolinians hospitalized due to coronavirus rose to 431, after dropping in two of the previous three days.

The number of Mecklenburg cases reported has fluctuated in recent days, as the difference between the Tuesday and Wednesday totals illustrate. Wednesday’s higher totals might include a backlog of cases after a slowdown in testing over Easter weekend.

“You can see a little bit of a slowing at the top of the graph,” public health director Gibbie Harris said Tuesday about daily totals. “Part of that, we believe, is an artifact of testing. There was reduced testing over the holiday weekend and therefore a reduced number of positives coming in at this point.”

Health officials add that the totals are only snapshots, since many people who have COVID-19 have not been tested.

Easing away from restrictions that have shuttered businesses and thrown hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians out of work will happen slowly, Gov. Roy Cooper told reporters Wednesday.

Cooper laid out three criteria: Increased testing to detect who’s sick with the virus and who has recovered from it; greatly expanded contact tracing to identify where and with whom infected people have been; and positive trends in new cases, deaths and hospitalizations.

Instead of a return to normal that happens as quickly as clicking on a light, the governor said, “think of it as a dimmer switch” that gradually brightens.

Field hospital postponed

A flattening trajectory of the outbreak could ease pressure on hospitals to provide beds for a surge of coronavirus patients at its peak, which may still be months away.

The Charlotte area’s two largest healthcare systems, Novant Health and Atrium Health, said Wednesday they likely won’t need a 600-bed field hospital to handle an expected surge in coronavirus patients. The Charlotte Convention Center had been the preferred site for the new hospital.

The hospital systems said in a letter to county officials that they have created new bed space within their own facilities that should suffice “assuming the effects of social distancing trend continues the current trajectory.”

“Instead of positive cases doubling every 2.85 days, as they were previously, the current trajectory is showing positive cases now doubling every 6 days,” the Atrium and Novant CEOs wrote in a letter Wednesday.

Cohen has also noted statewide changes in the “doubling rate” for lab-documented cases — how long it takes for cases to double from 1,000 to 2,000 or 2,000 to 4,000.

“If you go back in time, the doubling rate is extending, and that’s a good thing,” Cohen told reporters Tuesday. “That tells us that we’re slowing the rate of acceleration. And it tells us that all the hard work we’re doing to stay at home is working.”

An Observer analysis of Mecklenburg County data shows the number of daily new cases reported between April 11 and 14 fell far below the average number of new cases announced the previous week.

In the seven-day period of April 4-10, the county reported an average of 44 new cases a day. Between Good Friday and Wednesday, the daily average fell to just 23 cases.

Since March 19, when the first case of community transmission was documented in North Carolina, Mecklenburg has announced an average of nearly 37 new cases a day.

Stay-at-home order extended

But even with increased social distancing, the Mecklenburg health department expects patients to overwhelm the county health care system in early to mid-May, Harris said Tuesday.

At a social distancing compliance level of 40% to 50% social distancing, the degree seen now, peak demand for hospital beds would come on June 8, Harris said.

By that date, she said, the county predicts 1,143 intensive-care beds would be needed. It has 255 available. Demand for ventilators could reach 574 by June 8, she said, more than double the 243 units available.

The hospital systems’ apparent cancellation of a new field hospital doesn’t change those projections “as of today,” a county spokesman said Wednesday.

And passing the outbreak’s peak hardly means it will be over, Harris cautioned. “There’s still the other side of the slope,” she said.

DHHS on Wednesday reported ample supplies statewide of hospital beds, intensive-care beds and ventilators.

Mecklenburg’s stay-at-home order has been extended until April 29, matching the expiration date of Cooper’s statewide order. The county will follow Cooper’s lead in deciding whether to extend the restrictions into May or further, county manager Dena Diorio has said.

About half of all people diagnosed recently with COVID-19 in Mecklenburg County have recovered and been released from isolation, the Observer reported Monday. Experts say that rate of recovery is expected to grow long-term.

DHHS reported coronavirus outbreaks (two or more cases) Wednesday at 30 N.C. nursing homes, including four in Mecklenburg County; at nine residential care facilities, including two in Mecklenburg; and at six prisons and jails.

This story was originally published April 15, 2020 at 11:02 AM.