Sept. 17. By Dave Yochum. Despite accounting for 10.5 percent of the state’s population, Mecklenburg County accounted for 7.6 percent of North Carolina’s new confirmed cases over the past week. When Mecklenburg was the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in North Carolina this summer, the county was contributing more than 20 percent of cases statewide.
Based on data from John Hopkins University, the median number of daily new cases in Mecklenburg over the past week is running 24 percent below the median number of daily new cases over the past month.
“We are coming together to control COVID as opposed to COVID controlling us,” said County Commissioner Pat Cotham.
COTHAM
The data shows Mecklenburg is making progress with COVID but “we still need to stay on course as a community,” Cotham said.
Testing is now widely available and turn-around time is between 24 to 48 hours.
Police assist
“Law enforcement is doing a better job with serious violations and our COVID Ambassadors contacted 78 restaurants/gyms/bowling alleys in last three days to answer questions about compliance,” Cotham said.
The actual numbers are a median of 90 new cases over the past week, vs. 119 over the past month.
The NC Dept. of Health & Human Services today reported 110 new cases of COVID-19 in Mecklenburg, up from 104 yesterday and 90 on Tuesday. There were two new deaths from the coronavirus county-wide, up from one yesterday. None were reported Tuesday.
The percentage of positive COVID-19 tests coming back positive fell to 4.5 percent in Mecklenburg County—down from 8.8 percent at one point in late August.
North Carolina
Statewide, there were 1,552 new cases, up from 1,137 new cases yesterday. The median number of daily new cases statewide over the past week is 5.1 percent below the median number of daily new cases over the past month. The total number of North Carolinians infected with the coronavirus since March was just under 190,000 in today’s NCDHHS report.
Hospitalizations fell by 24 to 894 in today’s report. On Aug. 1, 1,151 people were hospitalized.
Using John Hopkins data, we compiled NC new confirmed COVID-19 cases from Aug. 17 to Sept. 16. The state’s median number of new cases since Aug. 17 is 1,263 and the state’s median over the past 7 days is 1,198.
Cumulative NC totals since pandemic began
Cases of COVID-19: 189,576
Deaths: 3,180
Tests: 2.71 million
North Meck
—Cornelius: 3 new cases, cumulative total 499. 16 deaths total
—Davidson: 2 new cases, total 281. 5 deaths total
—Huntersville: 6 new cases, 884 total. 11 deaths total
