NC Coronavirus Totals: 6,493 Confirmed Cases, 172 Deaths

NORTH CAROLINA — The North Carolina Health Department on Sunday reported eight more coronavirus deaths and 353 new cases, bringing the state's death toll to 172 and the total number of cases to 6,493.

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

COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has infected more than 2,34,000 people and killed more than 161,000 around the world as of Sunday morning, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University.

North Carolina reported its first coronavirus case on March 3. As of Sunday morning, 78,772 people in the state have been tested for the disease and 465 have been hospitalized.

Mecklenburg County has the highest number of confirmed cases as of Sunday. The total: 1,178. Second on the list is Wake County, with 592 positive infections.

As of Sunday morning, no cases have been reported in Graham, Swain, Madison, Yancey, Avery, Hyde, and Camden counties.

Mecklenburg County has reported 24 deaths, the most of any county in North Carolina as of Sunday. Guilford County is next with 13 reported death as of Sunday, according to the North Carolina Health Department. Rowan County is next with 10 reported 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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