Gov. Cooper announces coronavirus partnership with Duke, UNC, ECU; reiterates need for federal help
Gov. Roy Cooper on Friday announced that the state is teaming up with three hospitals — UNC, Duke and East Carolina — to learn more about how the coronavirus spreads.
The universities will use testing and tracing to help determine how many people were infected and what percentage of people are asymptomatic or do now show any symptoms at all.
The researchers will look at changes in COVID-19 in Chatham, Pitt and Cabarrus counties.
ECU’s Department of Public Health is working with the Pitt County Health Department, said Suzanne Lea, associate professor of epidemiology at ECU.
The researchers plan to conduct a survey every two weeks over the next few months asking participants about illnesses in their families, and how the pandemic has affected them economically and mentally. Participants will also submit a sample that will be tested for active disease, Lea said.
“ECU is well-positioned to contribute important information through our strong community partnerships and our shared goals,” Lea said in a statement. “We (UNC, Duke, State Division of Public Health) are all committed to understanding the distribution of COVID-19 across our state. This disease impacts everyone and it is important to collaborate to find answers.”
Cooper says NC needs more help from feds
The governor also said 13 North Carolina facilities, including public and private labs and hospitals, have completed at least 73,000 tests, an increase of 88 percent from two weeks ago. The testing, however, needs to be more widespread to give a more accurate assessment of where the state is in fighting the virus.
In order to make that happen, however, Cooper again said the state needs more help from the federal government in securing supplies like tests and personal protection equipment.
“Easing restrictions in our state without enough masks, gowns and gloves is like setting off on a three-day camping trip with enough food for just one night,” Cooper said. “We need all of these supplies to collect more test samples and to ensure hospitals and first responders have what they need.”
President Donald Trump on Thursday sat in on a call with the nation’s governors, including Cooper, to share his guidelines on how to reopen states. They include states seeing a downward trend on coronavirus cases. North Carolina, which saw an increase of another 400 cases since Thursday morning, is not close to meeting those guidelines.
Cooper on Friday discussed how testing, trends and tracing will help slow the spread of the virus and ease stay-at-home restrictions.
He said the state is, “continuing to deploy groups to hotspots like nursing homes to find out where the virus has been spread and warn those who might be at risk.”
He also said there is no perfect sequence to Trump’s guidelines.
“We want those trends to be headed down,” Cooper said, “so we can restore lives and livelihoods.”
As of Friday morning, the NC DHHS reported 5,859 cases of the coronavirus, 152 deaths, 72,981 completed tests, 429 people hospitalized and cases in 93 counties.
This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 2:28 PM.
