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Raleigh, North Carolina – A record 5,637 new coronavirus cases were reported in North Carolina on Thursday, beating the previous record by 25%.
Meanwhile, 2,101 people were being treated for COVID-19 in state hospitals, marking the sixth consecutive day that a record has been set in this metric.
Dr Mandy Cohen, secretary of the State Department of Health and Human Services, called the state that has passed the 5,000 new case mark “another devastating step.”
“This number is alarming,” Cohen said during a pandemic briefing.
The previous record for new cases was 4,514 on November 22. Thursday’s record number puts the seven-day moving average of new cases at 3,793 per day over the past week.
While the spike could be attributed to the crash in testing before Thanksgiving as people prepared for holiday gatherings, Cohen also expressed concern about the 11.4% positive test rate for coronaviruses.
“I am very worried,” she said.
Governor Roy Cooper, who was visiting a plant in Pittsboro that makes protective face shields and packages nasal swabs for virus testing, also called North Carolina’s trend lines “deeply disturbing.”
“We are particularly worried about the stress on our hospitals,” Cooper said. “We know that it is extremely important to try to reduce these numbers.”
Cooper and Cohen said state restrictions related to the pandemic were enough to limit the spread of the virus – provided people comply with them. But they said they would reimpose tighter restrictions if necessary.
“There are a lot of people doing the right thing and following the rules, and we are grateful to them. But it is irresponsible to ignore the rules and create situations where people can get infected,” he said. declared the governor. “It is critically important that people follow these orders and take personal responsibility.”
“We knew there would just be more risk of the spread” during the winter break, Cohen said. “We do know, however, what to do. We know what is preventing this. … We can all do things right now to slow the spread of this virus. We have to do it.”
The United States Food and Drug Administration is due to meet next week to review an emergency use authorization for a potential vaccine made by Pfizer. Vaccine candidates from Moderna and other companies are also in preparation for FDA clearance.
Cohen said that once a vaccine is approved, North Carolina will initially receive around 85,000 doses, which will be transported to the state’s largest hospitals, all of which have the ultra-cold freezers needed to store the vaccine. Pfizer.
Rural hospitals and small town facilities will not have access to this initial batch, she said, due to cold storage requirements and the inability to split 1000-dose packs into smaller units. . But the doses will continue to ship to North Carolina through the end of December and into January, which will eventually make it to smaller hospitals and counties.
Cohen said nursing home workers and healthcare workers who deal directly with COVID-19 patients will be the first groups targeted for vaccination in the state.
The state still hasn’t seen the full impact of travel and holiday gatherings over Thanksgiving weekend, Cooper noted. Fearing a continued increase in cases over the coming holidays, he continued to preach safety.
“I hope that people who are planning to hold these large gatherings will reconsider when they think about the fact that they could put people in a position where, not only are they making sick people who come in, but everyone else who comes in. contact with these people, ”he said. “During the holidays, that’s when you see a lot of them.”
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