North Carolina reports highest COVID-19 hospitalizations, 2nd-most ICU patients
North Carolina reported Sunday its highest number of people hospitalized with COVID-19, topping a high set just a day before, according to data from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
There are 1,885 people hospitalized with the virus statewide, DHHS reported, with 95% of hospitals reporting data. That topped the high reported Saturday of 1,840 hospitalizations.
Intensive care units statewide held 454 COVID-19 patients in the numbers DHHS reported Sunday, the second-highest number during the pandemic.
Hospitalization numbers reported Sunday reflect Saturday’s totals.
DHHS also reported 3,820 new lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases, the seventh-highest number since the pandemic began in March. Over the past week, there have been an average of 3,572 new cases each day.
On Friday, the last day for which data is available, 8.6% of COVID-19 tests came back positive. That lifted the positivity rate’s seven-day average to 7.5%,
DHHS also reported 21 deaths from COVID-19, bringing the pandemic’s toll to 5,240 North Carolinians.
Triad hospitalization surge
DHHS provides data about hospitalizations by health care preparedness regions, giving some insight into which parts of the state are seeing the most impact of COVID-19 on medical resources.
Sunday, the Triad Healthcare Preparedness Coalition was reporting the largest impact, with 531 hospitalizations from COVID-19. Of those, 133 patients were in the intensive care unit. Every hospital in the region had reported data.
The Triad coalition is based in the northwestern corner of the state, running along the Virginia state line with Randolph County as its southeastern corner. Guilford and Forsyth are the largest counties inside the coalition.
In addition, the Triad coalition was reporting the most new confirmed COVID-19 patients admitted in the last 24 hours, with 106. The region with the second-most COVID-19 admissions, the Charlotte-centered Metrolina Healthcare Preparedness Coalition, had 54 admissions. Metrolina was also the second-highest in hospitalizations, with 477.
DHHS’ recently released county alert system uses case rate, test positivity rate and the coronavirus’ impact on local hospitals to evaluate community spread on a county level.
Per the alert’s most recent update, six of the 17 counties that are fully in the Triad coalition are in the “red range,” meaning they are seeing a critical level of community spread: Alexander, Davie, Guilford, Surry, Wilkes and Yadkin. Catawba, which is partially included in the region, is also at a critical level.
As of Nov. 19, the end of the two-week period the update encompassed, Guilford was the only Triad red-range county where DHHS had determined COVID-19 was having a high impact on hospitals.
The other counties were in the red range because they had recorded case rates higher than 200 per 100,000 residents and test positivity rates higher than 10% over the preceding two weeks. Alexander County, for example, had seen a low impact on area hospitals, but had a case rate of 954.7 per 100,000 people and a positivity rate of 16.4%.
Triangle hospitalizations
Each of the three Triangle counties is in a different health care preparedness coalition, which, across the three, cover nearly all of the central part of the state. Wake is in the Capital Region, Durham is in the Duke coalition and Orange is in the Mid Carolina Region.
As of Sunday, hospitals across those three regions were reporting a total of 461 hospitalizations, with 86% of hospitals reporting.
The Mid Carolina Region, which includes Orange in the north before running south to Moore County and then east across Cumberland County to Sampson, had 210 of those hospitalizations, and 15 admissions in the last 24 hours.
The Duke coalition had a reported 126 hospitalizations with 17 admissions in the past 24 hours, but only 75% of those hospitals were reporting. That region makes a T-shape with Durham as the base supporting five counties along the North Carolina-Virginia state line. It also includes Robeson County.
And the Capital preparedness coalition reported 125 hospitalizations, with eight admissions in the past 24 hours. That region includes Wake, Franklin, Harnett, Lee and Johnston counties.
This story was originally published November 29, 2020 at 12:16 PM.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story reported that North Carolina had reached a record-high number of COVID-19 intensive care patients, based on daily numbers reported by the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. DHHS updates to those numbers increased the total from Nov. 25 to 456, higher than the initial 454 reported Sunday