Where are most of NC’s coronavirus patients? How many ventilators are there? Here’s the data.
This story has been updated to reflect data from Wednesday, April 1.
About 40 percent of the patients hospitalized in North Carolina with coronavirus or COVID-19 are in the Charlotte area, according to new data released Wednesday afternoon by the state’s Department of Health and Human Services.
North Carolina has 204 patients hospitalized due to coronavirus with 81 of them in Mecklenburg County and surrounding counties, according to the data. Mecklenburg County has more than 400 lab-confirmed coronavirus cases, according to the data.
NC DHHS has been releasing demographic information about the state’s coronavirus cases and deaths as the number of cases increases. That includes age, gender, county of residence and the number of patients hospitalized due to the virus.
Tuesday, the state added data on several new categories. That includes hospitalization by region, the number of ventilators in the entire state, the number being used along with the Personal Protective Equipment requested and received from the Strategic National Stockpile.
The data reflects information reported to NC DHHS by 94% of the state’s hospitals, according to the report.
The state DHHS lists 1,584 confirmed cases, 10 deaths and 26,243 tests completed on its website as of April 1 at 11 a.m.
The News & Observer is keeping a real-time count of additional cases announced by counties updated throughout the day. As of April 1 at 5 p.m., the N&O count is 1,638 cases and 13 deaths.
At least 1,716 people have tested positive for coronavirus in NC, and 15 residents have died.
Region breakdown
The state is divided into eight “healthcare preparedness coalitions” with hospital affiliations like WakeMed, UNC Hospitals and Duke University Hospitals.
The northeastern part of the state, which includes Northampton County, has 37 hospitalized patients, according to the data. Northampton County had an outbreak at a small assisted-living facility with 28 cases among residents and staff.
The other six coalitions, including the two primarily in the Triangle, have between 10 and 20 hospitalized patients each.
Ventilators
The state reports the number of patients in the state using ventilators as well as the number of ventilators in the hospitals. The state notes that the number of 691 patients includes people who aren’t diagnosed with COVID-19.
There are 2,818 ventilators in hospitals across the state, the state said. The number doesn’t include ventilators that have been bought but not yet at hospitals.
Cases by date
The report released Tuesday night includes the number of cases by date when the specimen was collected. In an 11-day stretch from March 16 to 26, the state collected more than 100 positive samples nine times.
The first positive sample was collected on March 2. Some samples collected in the last week are not counted yet because of the time between specimen collection and test results.
Not all people exhibiting symptoms of the coronavirus get tested, and not all people who have the virus experience symptoms, so the number of lab-confirmed cases does not fully reflect the prevalence of the virus throughout the state.
Age and gender breakdown
The cases are nearly split with women accounting for 52% and men 47% of cases. (The numbers may not equal 100% due to rounding.)
However, of the nine deaths in the NC DHHS data, eight were men. Seven of the deaths were 65 years of age or older; one was between 50 and 64; and the other was between 25 and 49.
Of the 1,498 lab-confirmed cases in the NC DHHS data: 19% were in people 65 and older; 26% were in people 50-64; and 43% were in people 25-49. Ten percent of cases were in people 18-24, and just one percent were in children under the age of 18.
Personal protective equipment
Gov. Roy Cooper said Tuesday that North Carolina has received 17.6% of the personal protective equipment it has requested from the federal government’s Strategic National Stockpile.
The new data released by NC DHHS breaks down the personal protective equipment into five categories: coveralls, face shields, gloves, gowns, N95 respirators and surgical masks and procedure masks.
North Carolina requested 500,000 pieces of each type. While the state has received more than 450,000 procedure marks, it has not received more than 188,000 of any other type of equipment. It has not received any coveralls, according to the data.
It has received close to 188,000 of the N95 masks, which protect the wearer from airborne particles, according to the FDA.
Some states, including Florida, have received everything they have asked for, while others have languished, according to The Washington Post.
“Florida, look, they’re very aggressive in trying to get things, and they’re doing a very good job,” President Donald Trump said Sunday in a Rose Garden press conference.
