Meck County continues to see increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations ahead of Labor Day weekend

MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. — Mecklenburg County continues to see concerning COVID-19 trends, from more deaths to high transmission; and now, more young adults are being hospitalized. It’s a dangerous mix ahead of Labor Day weekend, with thousands preparing to travel in and out of Charlotte.

In a news conference on Friday, county health officials said the holiday weekend will be a tipping point in the fight the virus.

Normally, the streets in uptown would be brimming with people for the Labor Day parade, but this week, organizers made the decision to cancel the parade again this year.

Ben Lee has had his eyes on this weekend’s Charlotte Labor Day parade since last year’s was canceled because of the pandemic. But unfortunately, this year the parade chairmen made the tough call.

“The main driving force is the safety of anybody participating in the parade, and we unfortunately decided that we couldn’t protect everybody to the degree we wanted to,” Lee said. “The logistics involved in a large parade are challenging, particularly coming off of a pandemic. You’ve got a lot of young, unvaccinated people that are going to be in the parade. Also in the confines we have here in this assembly lot, there’s no way to have that social distancing.”

Going into a holiday weekend, the health department is calling on the community again to get vaccinated and wear a mask.

“We’re at a bit of a tipping point in our community,” county health director Gibbie Harris said.

Some of the trends are stabilizing, though the levels are still elevated. Dr. Raynard Washington said they have seen roughly a tenfold increase in deaths since June.

Over the last month, more than 40% of the deaths have been among 20-59 year olds.

“In just the last few weeks, we’ve unfortunately lost four individuals who are really young adults between the ages of 20 and 39, with the youngest of those being 23,” Washington said.

Cases and hospitalizations also continue to increase across Mecklenburg County, with an average of 13.1% testing positive.

The county currently has a mask mandate in place, and the end date for the countywide order isn’t until the positivity rate dips to 5% for 30 days, or whenever the county rescinds it.

Mecklenburg County reported that over the past week, an average of 451 people were hospitalized due to COVID-19 -- which is an increase from previous weeks.

As of Friday, there have been 137,118 COVID-19 cases in the county since the start of the pandemic and 1,072 deaths due to the virus.

53% of Mecklenburg County residents are now fully vaccinated.

Of those younger people who died, Washington said some had underlying health conditions and some didn’t; but the common risk factor, particularly among young people, is that they were unvaccinated.

Highlights about the 136,432 COVID-19 cases reported in Mecklenburg County as of September 1, 2021 include:

• During the past week, an average of 536 laboratory confirmed infections per day were reported compared to the 14-day average of 550 confirmed infections. This represents a slight decrease over the last 14 days. These data are based on Mecklenburg resident cases reported to MCPH.
• During the past week, an average of 451 individuals with laboratory confirmed COVID-19 infections were hospitalized at acute care facilities in Mecklenburg County. This represents an increase trend over the last 14 days. These data are based on daily census counts from acute care facilities in Mecklenburg County reporting to MCPH.
• During the past week, an average of 13.1 percent of individuals who were tested in Mecklenburg County were positive for COVID-19. This represents a slight decrease trend over the last 14 days. These data only include ELRs for molecular (PCR) tests submitted to NC DHHS for laboratories electronically submitting negative and positive COVID-19 results.

• One thousand- sixty-nine deaths due to COVID-19 occurred among reported cases.
• Almost all deaths were among older adults (≥ 60 years), 21 deaths occurred in adults ages 20 to 39 and 156 deaths were adults ages 40 to 59.
• All deaths, except twenty-nine, occurred among adults with underlying chronic illnesses.
• Almost half were non-Hispanic Whites. The disparity in COVID-19 deaths among non-Hispanic Whites is related to differences in race/ethnicity of residents of long-term care (LTC) facilities actively experiencing an outbreak.
• Nearly 40 percent of deaths were connected to active outbreaks at long-term care (LTC) facilities.
• Among deaths not connected to outbreaks at long-term care facilities, nearly 2 in 3 were non-White, with 40 percent being non-Hispanic Black. As previously noted, these disparities are largely driven by higher rates of underlying chronic conditions that increase risk of severe complications due to COVID-19 infection among these communities.
• Between March 22, 2021 and September 2, 2021, MPCH received and confirmed reports of 454 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among fully vaccinated residents (<1% of fully vaccinated residents). This does not represent all breakthrough cases, as these are based on self-report during case investigations following COVID-19 diagnosis. Vaccination status is confirmed using the NC COVID-19 Vaccination Management System (CVMS).

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Novant, Atrium, CaroMont give update on COVID-19 surge ahead of Labor Day weekend

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