Mobile hospital deployed in Pineville amid COVID surge, ‘degree of relief’ in sight

Coronavirus-induced hospitalizations are slightly declining in Mecklenburg County, with the encouraging trend suggesting the Charlotte region has slowly begun to emerge from an alarming spike in new cases following the holiday season.

Over the past week, the average number of people requiring hospital-level care was 511 — compared to 530 in the week prior, Mecklenburg officials said.

On Jan. 13, the county notched a new record for daily hospitalizations: 565. By Wednesday, the last date which data is available, the volume had dropped to 470.

Yet even as coronavirus conditions show incremental signs of progress, health officials and medical experts warn the pandemic is far from over. The level of community spread remains high, and residents are still urged to stay home as much as possible.

”We’ll take any degree of relief we can get at this point,” Novant Health infectious diseases specialist Dr. David Priest told reporters Friday. “We’re moving in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go.”

A Charlotte Observer analysis of federal public health data shows that 88.7% of intensive care unit beds across Mecklenburg were filled between Jan. 8-14, according to the latest available statistics. At the end of December, about 90% of ICUs were filled, the Observer reported.

Despite the modest decline countywide, four of Mecklenburg’s seven hospitals saw a slight uptick in ICU bed occupancy rates, and three hospitals had at least 100% of their beds occupied. In the last week of August, by contrast, the ICU bed occupancy rate was 77% across the county.

Mecklenburg Public Health Director Gibbie Harris has said Novant and Atrium Health still have adequate capacity to care for all patients amid strained medical resources, including those with emergency needs beyond COVID-19.

It’s too early know, Harris said, if Mecklenburg might have reached its COVID-19 peak, which would represent the greatest strain on hospitals and a subsequent “flattening” of the coronavirus curve.

“What we are starting to see is a slight downward trend in our numbers,” Harris said in a news conference Friday afternoon. “We are hoping that those numbers will continue to move in that direction — the faster the better. But...we’ve seen before those slight trends going away and numbers moving back up.”

Across the Metrolina Healthcare Preparedness Coalition, which encompasses Mecklenburg and surrounding counties, 330 ventilators are in use and 576 are available.

There are 388 filled ICU beds, with only 75 available, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Another 224 beds are licensed, though it’s unclear if they have already been created through hospital surge planning.

Still, hospital leaders say their top concern is staffing, particularly if doctors and nurses must quarantine or isolate due to COVID-19 exposures.

“Our teams are very busy, but we are hopeful that we’ve moved past the Christmas and New Year’s surge...” Priest said. “But make no mistake, these numbers are still much higher than they were early on in the pandemic and (higher than) the spikes of COVID activity we had in the spring and one we had over the summer.”

Atrium’s mobile hospital

There’s been no recent local discussion of building a field hospital, like the 30-bed facility that opened earlier this month in Lenoir as rural hospitals in western North Carolina became inundated with patients, Harris has said.

Atrium announced this week it is deploying a “state-of-the-art emergency department on wheels” to its Pineville location. Based on weekly average data through Jan. 14, Pineville’s ICU capacity was 103%, the highest volume seen in data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for area hospitals.

Atrium’s MED-1 mobile hospital — first sent to Mississippi in 2005 to support Hurricane Katrina relief efforts — can now treat Charlotte area patients with “less critical needs,” including rashes, lacerations and minor sprains.

“By deploying Atrium Health MED-1, we are able to create a more than 40 percent increase in emergency department capacity, which is especially important as we care for our patients and community during this pandemic,” Mike Lutes, senior vice president and South Market president for Atrium Health, said in a statement.

The mobile hospital — which won’t treat coronavirus patients — has 14 acute care beds and a two-bed operating room, Atrium officials said. It’s also equipped with equipment for X-rays, ultrasounds and lab work. Some patients will be seen in the mobile hospital after visiting Pineville’s emergency room.

At Atrium Health University City, 100% of ICU beds were occupied, according to the HHS data. ICU capacity at Atrium’s flagship location, Carolinas Medical Center, hovered just below 85%.

Across Novant facilities, ICU capacity ranged from nearly 88% at Presbyterian Medical Center to 100% at the Matthews Medical Center.

COVID-19 trends

Mecklenburg’s COVID-19 positivity rate, another closely-watched metric that signals whether the virus spread is under control, dipped to 12.4% in the past week, officials also said Friday.

That same rate was logged days before Christmas, when testing demand hit record levels. In mid-January, the average positivity rate soared as high as 16%. State officials partially rely on a 5% target to guide opening decisions.

North Carolina’s modified stay-at-home order is still in effect — as is Harris’ directive for Mecklenburg residents to avoid nonessential travel and interactions with people beyond their household.

Since the start of the pandemic, Mecklenburg has recorded 80,241 cases, N.C DHHS reported Friday morning. In the last two weeks, the county logged 100 new infections for every 10,000 residents.

“We are a critical stage right now. Our numbers are still extremely high right now,” Harris said as she defended her directive. “If you go outside your house, you are taking the chance of being exposed to COVID-19.”

Local officials say 726 Mecklenburg residents have died of coronavirus-related complications. Earlier this week, Harris disclosed the county’s first pediatric death, though the health director said no additional information — including the child’s age and source of infection — will be released due to privacy concerns.

Gavin Off and Hannah Smoot contributed to this report.