Staying home has saved 4,000 lives in Charlotte, official says touting national study
Mecklenburg County Manager Dena Diorio says stay-at-home orders have saved thousands of lives in Charlotte and so far have kept an estimated 40,000 people out of the hospital, citing a recent Big Cities Health Coalition study.
The study included 30 U.S. cities and used modeling to estimate the impact of stay-at-home orders.
Big Cities estimates that with 45 days under a local and state stay-at-home order Charlotte and Mecklenburg County have helped save 4,320 lives. And, according to the estimates, the coronavirus measures have staved off at least 40,000 people being hospitalized with COVID-19 complications.
“I want to just take this opportunity to thank all the residents of Mecklenburg County who have abided by the stay-at-home order, have practiced social distancing, and have done what we’ve asked them to do to keep each other safe,” Diorio said Thursday.
The county has rapidly ramped up testing as the state moves gradually toward looser coronavirus restrictions.
Nearly 10,000 people in the last seven days have been tested for COVID-19, public health director Gibbie Harris said Thursday. That’s more than a fifth of all 46,000 COVID-19 tests performed since March in Mecklenburg by Charlotte’s health care systems.
But the county still fell short of its weekly testing goal.
Harris released plans last week to increase testing in the county with a goal of testing 5% of the county’s population in 30 days. That increased testing is expected to cover at least 50,000 people.
To hit the goal, the county needs to test nearly 13,000 county residents a week, Harris said May 7.
Mecklenburg County saw its largest single-day increase — and first triple digit increase — in daily reported cases Thursday, according to state numbers. That’s expected to continue, Harris said, with increased testing.
Still, the number of people hospitalized each week is falling, county data show, and the percentage of people testing positive out of all tests has shown a slight decrease over 14 days.
The county has seen 2,342 COVID-19 cases since mid-March and 63 people have died in Mecklenburg, Harris said Thursday. No new deaths have been reported since Sunday. The most recent data available shows nearly two-thirds of all people diagnosed with COVID-19 locally have recovered.
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