State reports 89 new COVID-19 cases in Mecklenburg as testing increases across NC
Mecklenburg County has seen a total of 3,231 coronavirus cases, according to state health data Sunday morning. The number is cumulative since mid-March.
The county added 89 new cases from the previous day, the state Department of Health and Human Services reported.
The county has seen large jumps in cases in the last 10 days, hitting the county’s first triple-digit, single-day case increase on May 14 with 116 new cases reported.
Since then, the county has reported four days with triple-digit daily case increases. Saturday marked the county’s largest single-day increase by far, with nearly 200 new cases reported.
The increase in cases comes as North Carolina pushes for increased testing across the state. County public health director Gibbie Harris said Friday Mecklenburg is “on target” to meet its goal to test about 55,500 people in 30 days. The county is almost halfway into the 30-day timeline.
As testing and cases have increased, the county has reported a slight decline in percentage of positive tests, an important marker for health officials. As of Wednesday, an average of 6.3% people who were tested were positive for COVID-19 in the past week.
Roughly 1,897 people diagnosed with COVID-19 in the county have recovered and since been released from isolation, according to the latest figures released on May 22.
Health officials say 73 people with COVID-19 have died locally, as of Friday. More than half of those were people connected to nursing homes or long-term care facilities, according to the health department. Mecklenburg officials say there are 15 known outbreaks, as of Wednesday, inside residential care centers.
On Friday, Mecklenburg County announced the county’s youngest coronavirus-related death, the county’s first in someone who didn’t have an underlying condition. The person was 43 years old, county health officials said.
Statewide, DHHS reported 497 new cases Sunday, for a total of 23,222, and 7 more deaths, for a total of 744.
Mecklenburg COVID-19 update
As of May 20 — the last date demographic data was publicly available — county coronavirus data show:
▪ An average of about 62 people with lab-confirmed coronavirus infections were hospitalized at acute-care facilities in the past week. Those numbers reflect a slight increase over the past two weeks, according to Mecklenburg health officials.
▪ An average of 6.3% of people who were tested were positive, showing a slight decrease over the last 14 days, health officials say. The figure includes only COVID-19 tests conducted by Atrium Health and Novant Health.
▪ About 3 in 4 people diagnosed with COVID-19 locally were adults ages 20 to 59 years old.
▪ About 1 in 8 people diagnosed were hospitalized due to their illness. People age 60 or older were more likely to need hospital care compared to younger people with coronavirus.
“Many individuals infected by COVID-19 have not been tested because they are asymptomatic or do not meet current CDC recommendations for testing. As such, these results are very fluid and only represent a fraction of the true burden of COVID-19 in our community,” Mecklenburg health officials said in a news statement Friday.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREWhy don't we know how many tests have been done in Mecklenburg County?
Mecklenburg County Health Department collects data from local hospitals on the number of tests administered. County officials have said they do not know how many tests have been done outside of hospitals.
Non-hospital test centers and private labs report the number of tests and outcomes directly to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. The state health department reports on its website a daily count of the number of tests performed across North Carolina. A county-by-county breakdown of the number of tests has not been provided publicly.
This story was originally published May 24, 2020 at 11:50 AM.
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