COVID-19 in Charlotte enters 2nd month of falling caseload with positivity rate at 5.8%
Mecklenburg County is entering its second month of improving COVID-19 trends. Still, as restrictions ease and education leaders move closer to a return to classrooms, the county’s health director says a spike in infections could await.
As of Tuesday, there have been 27,021 lab-confirmed cases of the new coronavirus in Mecklenburg, state health data show. County health leaders have reported a total of 340 deaths since mid-March.
Both the 14-day average of daily new COVID-19 cases and the positivity rate (5.8%) are at the lowest point in Mecklenburg County since May. On Tuesday, the state health department reported 90 new cases locally, which is below the 14-day average of 105 new cases per day.
The number of people needing hospital-level care with coronavirus has also dropped.
But health director Gibbie Harris has warned coronavirus infections could spike in coming days, as the effects of Labor Day parties and relaxed social distancing begin to show in caseload statistics.
Taking into account the average time it takes for symptoms to develop and test results to return, health experts say it could take up to two weeks for the public to know how an event, such as a holiday, affects local trends.
For now, critical COVID-19 trends in Mecklenburg County have been declining or stable since July, data released by the county Tuesday show.
The daily case tally has been decreasing since hitting a peak in mid-July. The data shows short-lived spike late last month, which coincided, according to county data, with decreased social distancing.
Harris has also said the jump may have been in part due to a statewide delay in reporting tests by major North Carolina testing center LabCorp. In that case, roughly 1,000 positive tests from earlier in August were reported to the state Department of Health and Human Services in late August.
Mecklenburg has also seen a decrease in hospitalization in recent weeks. The seven-day average of daily hospitalizations is now at the lowest point since mid-June.
Health officials locally and at the state level have said hospitalization figures reflect the severity of infections from days or weeks prior, meaning any incoming surge from late summer or early fall could still be weeks away.
COVID-19 data and trends in Charlotte
As of September 13 — the last date demographic data was publicly available — county coronavirus data show:
▪ Deaths and hospitalizations continue to be most prevalent among older adults. More than half of those people who have died from COVID-19 locally were connected to “active outbreaks” in long-term care facilities or nursing homes. There were 57 deaths in June in Mecklenburg, 64 in July and 81 in August. There have been 44 deaths reported in September so far.
▪ About 80% of all people diagnosed with coronavirus in the county have since recovered and been released from isolation, meaning enough time has passed since their symptoms stopped.
▪ The number of people with COVID-19 needing to be hospitalized in and around Charlotte remains the highest in North Carolina.
This story was originally published September 15, 2020 at 4:40 PM.
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