Gov. Cooper confident there will be increases in coronavirus testing in North Carolina
With expanding testing for the coronavirus an important part of his plan to relax social restrictions, Gov. Roy Cooper continues seeking federal help while realizing the state must do plenty of the work.
Cooper, in releasing his benchmarks for reopening the state last week, said he wants North Carolina to reach 5,000 to 7,000 tests per day. The state has been above 5,000 daily tests just four times in April.
“We want to get our testing up to the point where we can go in and test at job sites where an employee has tested positive, to go in and test everybody. We want to be able to go in and test everyone at a nursing home where there’s an outbreak there and we want to increase testing all around,” Cooper said Tuesday in a press conference when asked what is keeping the state from reaching its goal in testing.
Cooper said he was on a call with other governors and President Donald Trump on Monday, and said the federal government is going to help with testing. Earlier this month, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services announced a 12-member “testing surge workgroup.”
“We realized about a month ago that the states were going to be responsible for getting us where we need to get. We’ve been working on it since that time,” Cooper said. “We believe that we’re going to reach our goal in the number of tests we need for the indicators.”
Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of North Carolina’s DHHS, said the state is partnering with others, including hospital systems and Veterans Affairs, to help expand testing capabilities across the state. She said that is a primary focus of the workgroup.
“How can you ramp up testing? It’s going to take efforts along many, many fronts. It’s not only getting the right supplies, but also getting the right people in the right place so that we can respond to these kinds of things, like an outbreak at a nursing home,” Cohen said.
Cohen seeks Medicaid boost
Cohen said Tuesday she made a two-pronged plea to her counterpart on the federal level to help providers who serve Medicaid recipients.
The first round of federal funding approved as part of the CARES Act provided double the payment to healthcare providers who see patients with private health insurance or who are on Medicare compared to providers serving Medicaid or uninsured patients.
‘Think about that,” Cohen said. “Twice as much for the private insurance case as Medicaid. So that means medicaid providers will receive substantially less from this early fund compared to others providing the exact same care to privately insured and Medicare patients.”
Hoping to correct this and help rural providers who she said “already work at the thinnest margins” financially, Cohen said she sent a letter to Alex Azar, head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, asking the federal government to establish a fund to help those NC providers she would administer.
“At the federal level we need to support these providers so that many North Carolinians who rely on them for their healthcare are protected,” Cohen said. “There is still time to get this right.”
Congress just approved another $75 billion in funding, bringing the total to $175 billion nationally. Cohen wants 30 percent of that total ($50 billion) to go toward providers serving Medicaid and uninsured patients.
In addition, Cohen asked Azar to approve a waiver, as has been done in past disaster situations such as hurricanes and floods, that allows the state to temporarily expand its Medicaid program.
“Such waivers have been approved in prior disasters and COVID-19 is certainly a disaster,” Cohen said.
NASCAR cleared to race?
Cooper said Tuesday that unless health conditions go down, he believes NASCAR will host the Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord next month.
Cooper said NASCAR officials and officials at the speedway have submitted plans to the state to hold the event. He said Cohen and state health director Dr. Betsey Tilson have made suggestions that he believes will be approved.
Beaches allowed to open
Even though Cooper’s stay-at-home executive order runs through May 8, some local municipalities in coastal areas are making plans to open their beaches again prior to that date.
Cooper said that move is allowed but he wants people on the beaches to practice safety guidelines.
“We would encourage these local communities to do things to encourage people to keep moving, encourage people to be socially distant,” Cooper said.
This story was originally published April 28, 2020 at 4:58 PM.