NC Coronavirus: 7 New Deaths As State Now Has Nearly 7,000 Cases

NORTH CAROLINA — There are now nearly 7,000 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in North Carolina, as the statewide death toll increased to 179, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services said Monday morning.

The new batch of data released April 20 by state public health officials shows that after completing nearly 80,000 tests, there are now 6,764 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, in North Carolina.

The data released Monday morning shows an increase of 905 infections and 27 new deaths from COVID-19 since Friday.

The number of outbreaks confirmed in congregate living facilities in the state, such as nursing homes and residential care facilities, continues to rise as deaths reported in these facilities claim about 40 percent of the state's death toll.

As of Monday, at least 1,640 people have tested positive at North Carolina congregate living facilities as COVID-19 outbreaks were reported in 37 nursing homes, 13 residential care facilities and at least nine correctional facilities, NC DHHS said.

Heath officials say they expect the numbers to go up as more tests become available.

As of Monday morning, there are 373 hospitalizations from COVID-19 in the state, 92 fewer than reported Sunday.

According to NC DHHS, a survey of nearly 80 percent of the state's hospitals shows that 655 of the available 2,863 ventilators in North Carolina are in use as of Monday. That represents a nearly 23 percent of the state's ventilators are currently in use. When it comes to intensive care unit beds, 889 beds, or nearly 28 percent, of 3,223 beds are filled.

Globally, more than 2.4 million have been infected by COVID-19, and more than 166,256 people have lost their lives, Johns Hopkins University reported Monday morning.

As of Monday morning, coronavirus cases have been confirmed in 93 of the state's 100 counties. No cases have been reported in Graham, Swain, Madison, Yancey, Avery, Hyde, and Camden counties, according to state officials.

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 in 93 of North Carolina's 100 counties, along with the number of cases by county and the number of deaths:

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On Friday, North Carolina tapped three medical universities in the state to help public health officials chart the spread of novel coronavirus throughout the state — a detail Gov. Roy Cooper says is vital before the state can ease restrictions.

"Today we announce a partnership with three of our state's medical universities to use testing and tracing to help us determine how far the disease has spread in the state," Cooper said during a news conference Friday. "This is part of a coordinated statewide effort to better understand the true number of COVID-19 infections."

As for calls to ease restrictions on businesses, Cooper said restrictions would relax once the state's coronavirus trends start to go down. Officials are looking at a number of options, including possibly easing restrictions in certain regions of the state, he said.

Earlier last week, Cooper said decisions regarding new social distancing executive orders for the state will be made at the end of April, and that his intention is to reopen the state's economy incrementally based on progress in COVID-19 testing, tracing, and seeing overall trends move in the right direction.

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