Atrium, Novant report new COVID clusters among staff, patients in Charlotte area

Atrium Health and Novant Health are seeing additional COVID-19 clusters as the Charlotte region experiences a continuing surge from the highly contagious delta variant.

Mecklenburg County health officials detailed the outbreaks in a weekly coronavirus trends report Friday morning. It outlined at least 88 cases, mostly involving hospital staff, at the Charlotte region’s two main hospital systems.

These outbreaks, as of Wednesday, include:

▪ Atrium Health, nursing unit at Levine Children’s Hospital: Nine cases among staff

▪ Atrium Health, respiratory therapy department at Levine Children’s Hospital: One case among staff

▪ Atrium Pineville, non-maternity unit: 38 cases among staff

▪ Atrium Pineville, maternity unit: 14 cases among staff and seven cases among patients

▪ Novant Matthews Medical Center, emergency department: 13 cases among staff

▪ Novant Matthews Medical Center, safety officers: Six cases among staff

Due to reporting discrepancies between the state and the county health department, the true infection total could be higher.

Hospitals investigate their COVID clusters

Atrium and Novant are investigating the COVID-19 clusters, NCDHHS spokeswoman Catie Armstrong confirmed. She did not give additional information on the clusters.

“None of us, including health care workers, are 100% immune to the more contagious, aggressive delta variant with its high level of community spread,” Novant Health said in a statement. “Fortunately, we have strong infection prevention measures in place to help us mitigate the risk of spread within our facilities.”

Those protocols helped Novant Health Matthews Medical Center identify the COVID-19 cases among two groups of employees and limit further spread, the health system said. No new cases related to the Novant Health clusters have been reported since Tuesday, according to Novant.

A majority of the infected Novant Health employees were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, according to the hospital system.

“The reality is unvaccinated individuals — everywhere — are at high risk of contracting, and therefore spreading, the virus,” Novant Health said.

Mecklenburg’s data report did not detail the severity of the infections. It was not clear how many infections were considered breakthrough cases among fully vaccinated people.

“Despite all of the precautions and policies we’ve put in place to keep the virus out of our facilities, the spread of COVID-19 is affecting some of our teammates,” Atrium Health spokesman Dan Fogleman said in a statement. “The chances of them contracting the virus increases dramatically as more of the community that they are caring for come to our facilities who are infected.”

More than 95% of people hospitalized with COVID-19 or who have died from the virus in recent weeks were unvaccinated, he said.

“As shown by the 600% increase in COVID hospitalizations over the past 30 days, the delta variant of COVID is extremely contagious and continues to have an impact on our region,” Fogleman said. “...Getting a COVID vaccine is the best way to protect yourself, your family and the entire community.”

Maternity unit outbreak

Atrium Health had previously reported a coronavirus cluster at Atrium Health Pineville last week.

At the time, 50 health care workers had tested positive for COVID-19, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services told the Observer last Thursday.

N.C. DHHS spokeswoman Bailey Pennington said 35 of those employees were vaccinated. Nine patients had also tested positive so far.

The numbers are evolving as contact tracing remains underway. Genetic sequencing of those tests at Atrium Health Pineville identified all cases as the delta variant.

Hospital workers can get sick “like anyone else,” Atrium’s direction of infection prevention Dr. Katie Passaretti said in a video shared with the Observer last week.

“We are going to continue to see vaccinated individuals with mild cases of COVID,” Passaretti had stated. “That does not mean the vaccine doesn’t work.”

Vaccines required for hospital workers

Both hospital systems have issued a vaccine requirement for employees.

Atrium Health will require all workers — including remote workers, physicians, medical residents, faculty, fellows, trainees, contractors, medical staff, students, temporary workers and volunteer staff — to get vaccinated or have an approved medical or religious exemption by Oct. 31.

And Novant Health will require the same for all of its employees, contractors, vendors and students by Sept. 15.

Visitor restrictions at Novant

In response to rising cases of COVID-19, Novant Health is adjusting its visitor restrictions, the hospital system announced Friday.

Starting Tuesday, all patients, except those with confirmed or potential COVID-19, may have just one overnight visitor.

Obstetric and labor delivery patients are allowed one support person for the entire stay, although patients may also have a certified doula as well. Previously, those patients were allowed two visitors.

This story was originally published August 20, 2021 at 11:34 AM.