470 New Coronavirus Cases, 20 Deaths Reported In NC

NORTH CAROLINA — North Carolina's number of new coronavirus cases jumped by 470 Wednesday, for a total of 15,816 cases confirmed in the state in the past day, according to North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

Novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, is also responsible for 20 new deaths in the state since Tuesday, increasing the state's total death count to 597.

As of Wednesday morning, there were 521 people hospitalized with coronavirus-related illness, 46 more than reported Tuesday.

State public health officials say increases in the number of confirmed cases are expected as testing ramps up throughout North Carolina. The state collected results from 8,213 tests on Wednesday, which increased the total number of tests processed in the state to 210,457. The state's goal is to test between 5,000 and 7,000 people per day.

According to the state agency, a survey of about 91 percent of the state's hospitals shows that 807 of the available 3,383 ventilators in North Carolina are in use as of Wednesday morning. That represents about 24 percent of the state's ventilators currently in use. When it comes to intensive care unit beds, 807 beds, or about 25 percent, of 3,223 beds are filled.

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The spread of COVID-19 in congregate living facilities throughout the state also increased since Tuesday, by 122 people for a total of 3,918 confirmed cases. Outbreaks are now present in 69 nursing homes, 24 residential care facilities and 18 correctional facilities, according to data released by NC DHHS.

Congregate living facilities, such as nursing homes, residential care facilities and correctional facilities, account for about a quarter of the confirmed coronavirus cases in the state but claim more than 60 percent of North Carolina's COVID-19 deaths. At least 309 nursing home residents in North Carolina have died from coronavirus-related illness.

Mecklenburg County continues to report the most number of positive cases. As of Wednesday, 2,204 people in the county had tested positive and 61 people have died from COVID-19, DHHS said..

In the Research Triangle, Wake County reported 1,080 positive cases and 25 deaths as of Wednesday. Durham County had the next most positive cases in the state, at 903. As of May 13, 35 people in Durham County had died from COVID-19.

Globally, nearly 4.3 million have been infected by COVID-19, and more than 293,000 people have lost their lives, Johns Hopkins University reported Wednesday morning. In the U.S., more than 1.3 million people have been infected and at least 82,548 people have died from COVID-19.

In an attempt to provide as much information to our readers as possible, Patch is publishing a county-by-county breakdown of the coronavirus cases reported in 99 of North Carolina's 100 counties, along with the number of cases by county and the number of deaths:

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