The White House is worried about COVID-19 in these North Carolina counties
Dr. Deborah Birx and the White House Coronavirus Task Force are worried about COVID-19’s spread in a handful of North Carolina counties, including in the Triangle.
On Wednesday, state health secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen said North Carolina is ramping up testing and tracing resources to those counties and others, including Alamance, Duplin, Durham, Forsyth, Johnston, Lee, Mecklenburg and Wake.
“Statewide, we continue to build our testing and contact tracing infrastructure,” Cohen said, “but at the same time we need to respond to our data and surge additional testing and tracing resources to several targeted communities and populations that have been hardest hit by Covid-19.”
During a call last week, Birx raised concerns about a half-dozen counties, including the state’s urban population centers, Cohen said Wednesday. State health officials had been evaluating how to send additional testing and tracing resources to those areas and a couple more, a plan that is now in motion, Cohen said.
“We overlap very much with some of the ones that (Birx) had on her list,” Cohen said. “It was some of our more urban areas, but I think ... that Lee County was one of the ones that she mentioned, in particular.”
In Mecklenburg County, local officials are working with the state to increase the daily number of daily Covid-19 tests from about 2,000 to about 20,000, the Charlotte Observer reported. Mecklenburg’s county manager pointed to Mecklenburg as one of the areas Birx had flagged for Cohen.
There are also alarming trends statewide. Each day this week, North Carolina has reported a record high for residents hospitalized with COVID-19. On Monday, the state reported 739 patients, 774 on Tuesday and 780 on Wednesday.
“That’s worrisome,” Cohen told a state legislative committee Wednesday morning. “It’s not just about cases, but people are actually getting quite sick.”
A News & Observer analysis of positive tests reported by each of the eight counties since May 26 shows the doubling rate has shortened in some of the counties of concern, but lengthened in others.
Doubling rate measures how long the total number of cases in each county takes to double. When the doubling time declines, that indicates the virus is spreading more quickly in those places.
Officials have closely watched the metric to determine how fast the virus is moving throughout the population.
Among the counties where North Carolina is increasing resources, the doubling time is generally declining in Alamance, Durham, Johnston, Mecklenburg and Wake counties.
Durham County, for instance, reached a doubling time of 28 days on May 27. Then, on May 30, the doubling time began to drop, hitting 18 days as of Tuesday.
The doubling rate started to decline in most of the other counties around the same time. Alamance and Wake both started to decrease on June 1. Johnston’s dip started on May 28.
From May 10 to May 22, Mecklenburg’s doubling rate remained at 25 to 26 days. Since then, it has steadily declined to 18 days.
Statewide, the doubling time for COVID-19 cases is about 23 days, recently ticking upward from 22 days.
In Duplin, Forsyth and Lee counties, doubling time has grown in recent weeks. That indicates the virus is spreading more slowly in those places.
For instance, on May 26, Duplin had recorded 670 positive COVID-19 tests and had a doubling time of 10 days. By June 9, the number of cases had climbed to 1,062 and the doubling time had slowed to 17.5 days.
While North Carolina is sending additional testing and tracing resources to eight counties this week, Cohen acknowledged that cases could spike elsewhere in the state at any time.
“Frankly, the numbers are changing so often, (and) so are those needs in terms of surging resources,” Cohen said. “So we’re trying to build better muscle here at the state, as well as in our local communities to make sure that we have the ability to urge resources, move them around to places that we may need them.”
This reporting is financially supported by Report for America/GroundTruth Project and The North Carolina Local News Lab Fund, a component fund of the North Carolina Community Foundation. The News & Observer maintains full editorial control of the work. To support the future of this reporting, subscribe or donate.
This story was originally published June 10, 2020 at 3:13 PM with the headline "The White House is worried about COVID-19 in these North Carolina counties."