May 20. It’s more and more clear, at least in North Carolina, that COVID-19 kills the elderly at a far greater rate than any other age cohort. A new more interactive report from the NC Dept. of Health & Human Services says 64 percent of those who have died of COVID-19 are over 75 years old. Another 21 percent who have died are between the ages of 65 and 74.
There have been a total of 702 deaths, up one from yesterday, according to NCDHHS.
Total cases: 20,122, up 2.1 percent from Tuesday’s report
Number hospitalized: 554, down from 585 yesterday
Number tested: 277,603, up 4.7 percent from 265,008 yesterday
A 7.5 percent positive test rate is holding steady, so more testing naturally means more cases.
Johns Hopkins University is reporting 11,637 COVID-19 patients in North Carolina have recovered.
For Mecklenburg County, NCDHHS is reporting 2,780 cases of COVID-19 and a total of 67 deaths, with 18 of them centered in the Autumn Care nursing home in Cornelius.
Mecklenburg remains the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, with 25 cases per 10,000 residents. Wake County, which is virtually the same size as Mecklenburg, has 12 cases per 10,000 residents, according to the NCDHHS report. Thirty COVID-19 deaths have been reported in Wake, which has had 1,307 cases, according to NCDHHS data.
At 1 pm Wednesday, Johns Hopkins was reporting 92,149 COVID-19 deaths nationwide. Click here to review Johns Hopkins data live.