North Carolina continues to see drop in percentage of positive tests

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services reported 1,454 new COVID-19 cases and 17,717 more completed tests Saturday.

The drop in testing comes after the state reported a sharp increase in tests, which nearly doubled the testing numbers reported earlier this week and was met with a drop in the percentage of positive tests.

As of Wednesday, 5.3% of tests are positive, the lowest the metric has been in a month and close to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation of 5% or lower. On Saturday, it continued to drop and the state reported 5.2% of tests were positive.

Currently, 870 people across the state are hospitalized with COVID-19, with 95% of hospitals reporting.

405 suspected COVID-19 patients were admitted into hospitals on Friday, and 287 adults in the intensive care unit are being treated for the virus.

Currently, 487 intensive care unit beds and 5,281 inpatient beds are available.

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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.

WHAT ABOUT CLOSER TO HOME?

As of Saturday, there were 26,781 cases of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) with 331 deaths due to COVID-19 reported among Mecklenburg County residents.

Data as of September 9, 2020 are presented in more detail below.

About 3 in 4 reported cases were adults ages 20 to 59 years old.
About 1 in 4 reported cases are Hispanic – most of whom are younger adults. As previously noted, some factors influencing this trend include:
Targeted testing occurring in neighborhoods with lower access to care, some of which have larger Hispanic populations;
Higher proportions of Hispanics working in essential jobs that make social distancing difficult;
Significant household spread among large families; and
Pre-existing disparities in other social and economic determinants of health, like poverty.
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.
Nearly 8 out of 10 have met CDC criteria to be released from isolation.
During the past week, an average of 82 laboratory-confirmed infections were reported compared to the 14-day average of 100 confirmed infections. These data are based on Mecklenburg resident cases reported to MCPH.
During the past week, an average of 142 individuals with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infections were hospitalized at acute care facilities in Mecklenburg County. Overall this represents a fairly stable 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 6.1 percent of individuals who were tested in Mecklenburg County were positive for COVID-19. This represents a fairly stable trend over the last 14 days. These data only include tests conducted in Mecklenburg County by Atrium Health, Novant Health, CVS Health, Walgreens Pharmacy and Tryon Medical Partners as available. Tryon Medical Partners began providing data as of August 11, 2020. These data were validated and included for the first time in this report. Given the overall volume, the addition had very little impact on the overall trends. Reporting of negative results to MCPH is not required or covered by communicable disease reporting laws. MCPH will include results from other providers and laboratories as accurate, consistent and timely reporting mechanisms are established.
Three hundred-thirty-two deaths due to COVID-19 occurred among reported cases.
Almost all deaths were among older adults (≥ 60 years), 4 deaths occurred in adults ages 20 to 39 and 43 deaths were adults ages 40 to 59.
All deaths, except five, occurred among adults with underlying chronic illnesses.
More than 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.
More than 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 slightly increased then slightly decreased in Mecklenburg County over the last 14 days. Overall, this represents a fairly stable trend over the last 14 days.