The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services is reporting 5,936 new positive COVID-19 cases on Monday, which is a significant drop from when the state reported record numbers with five digits.
Last Saturday, the state reported more than 11,000 COVID-19 cases for the first time since the pandemic began. It also followed back-to-back days of more than 10,000 cases last Thursday and Friday.
The percentage of positive cases increased slightly to 13.9%.
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There were 11 additional deaths reported on Monday, meaning at least 7,578 people in North Carolina have now died from COVID-19 in less than a year.
The number of people hospitalized with the virus remains steady at 3,843.
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Note: The numbers we show you every day mean everything in how our community recovers from coronavirus -- both in terms of healthcare and the economy -- but they don’t mean much without the proper context and as much transparency as possible.
New cases vary day by day based on a lot of factors. That can include how long it takes to get results back, so a new case reported today can really be several days old.
The other big metric we watch is the percent of positive cases. This is data we can only get from the state because it’s not as simple as factoring a percent of new cases each day from the number of tests. That’s because test results take days and come from a variety of places.
COVID-19 surge taking toll on local hospitals
In the Charlotte area, Channel 9 has learned ICU and inpatient beds are filling up at alarming rates, and cases aren’t slowing down.
If you have to make a trip to Novant or to Atrium Health, this affects how long you have to wait and whether you will be able to have certain procedures.
We’ve learned these hospitals are about 90 to 95 percent full.
Inpatient and Intensive Care Unit beds at Novant Presbyterian are 90% to 95% full. Atrium Health says the situation there is similar.
99% of the ICU beds at Novant Matthews are occupied by COVID patients, officials say.
State data shows about 100 COVID-19 patients were added to hospitals in our region from Jan 7 to Jan 8 and 109 more from Jan 8 to Jan 9. From Jan. 9 to Jan. 10, 105 more patients were added.
Hospital administrators said they’ve seen longer wait times in some emergency rooms and in some cases, they’ve had to redirect non-emergency patients to other locations.
If the strain on hospitals continues, Dr. Sid Fletcher with Novant said the healthcare system is considering stopping non-essential surgeries and procedures -- similar to what happened at the start of the pandemic.
[ Report: NC could run out of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients in 6 weeks ]
Atrium officials say unlike the beginning of the pandemic, hospitals say they do have enough PPE, but they’re concerned about having enough nurses and staff members.
“I will tell you a number of them are out just like everybody else in the community, because they’ve either gotten COVID, or they are in quarantine and that’s from being a community member, just like all the rest of us,” Dr. Sid Fletcher with Novant said.
Novant has brought in new team members to help with the spike and to fill in for employees who’ve gotten sick.
Atrium said its “Hospital at Home” program, which allows some patients to stay in their homes while receiving care has helped with bed space. They’ve also brought on additional staff, but health officials said they can’t hire their way out of this.
“When its your turn, you have to get vaccinated, that’s how we get through this thing,” Dr. Gary Little with Atrium said.
Atrium and Novant said about 50 percent of their employees who work around patients have gotten the vaccine.
WHAT ABOUT CLOSER TO HOME? MECK COUNTY METRICS STILL TROUBLING
As of Monday afternoon, there were 72,177 cases of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) with 618 deaths due to COVID-19 reported among Mecklenburg County residents.
Highlights about the 67,623 COVID-19 cases reported in Mecklenburg County as of January 6, 2021 include:
- About 3 in 4 reported cases were adults ages 20 to 59 years old.
- About 1 in 20 reported cases were hospitalized due to their COVID-19 infection. While everyone is at risk for severe COVID-19 complications, reported cases who were older adults (≥ 60 years) were more likely to be hospitalized compared to younger individuals.
- About 8 out of 10 have met CDC criteria to be released from isolation.
- During the past week, an average of 793 laboratory-confirmed infections per day were reported compared to the 14-day average of 699 confirmed infections. This represents an increase over the last 14 days. These data are based on Mecklenburg resident cases reported to MCPH.
- During the past week, an average of 508 individuals with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infections were hospitalized at acute care facilities in Mecklenburg County. This represents an increase 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 16.0 percent of individuals who were tested in Mecklenburg County were positive for COVID-19. This represents an increase 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.
- Six hundred-six deaths due to COVID-19 occurred among reported cases.
- Almost all deaths were among older adults (≥ 60 years), 9 deaths occurred in adults ages 20 to 39 and 73 deaths were adults ages 40 to 59.
- All deaths, except fifteen, 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 half 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 3 in 4 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
- Based on publicly available mobility tracking data, social distancing represents a fairly stable trend in Mecklenburg County over the last 14 days.