NC’s First Case Of Coronavirus Community Spread Confirmed

NORTH CAROLINA — North Carolina public health officials say they have confirmed the first case of community spread of novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, in Wilson County, Gov. Roy Cooper said Thursday afternoon.

Community spread means the person came in contact with COVID-19 through unknown means and not through travel or by direct contact with someone who has tested positive.

The development means schools will likely remain closed for longer than initially anticipated, he said.

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“This is an expected, but still unfortunate new benchmark in this pandemic,” Cooper said during the March 19 press conference. “Expected community spread is one of the many reasons our state made difficult decisions to take early, aggressive action to slow the spread.”

State emergency officials are in the process of identifying facilities that could be used as emergency medical centers, and are pushing out more testing supplies and establishing more sample collection sites across the state, he said.

“I can’t stress enough how much our state and the country will need the federal government to step up with testing supplies, protective equipment, and ventilators,” Cooper said. “We are managing our resources and we are ahead of other states. But we can expect many more patients.”

Community spread of COVID-19 means state health officials will now begin shifting from containment to mitigation, NC Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen said.

“Now that we have seen our first case of community spread, we see why these aggressive preventative measures are necessary,” she said. “We strongly encourage everyone to heed our recommendations for social distancing.”

Schools closures will be affected, Cooper said. “We're going to be out of schools for a while. The order was for March 30 but I think people know that with community spread and the crisis increasing, we will likely be out for longer,” Cooper said.

Globally, more than 235,000 people have been infected and nearly 10,000 people have died from the new coronavirus, Johns Hopkins reported Thursday afternoon. Of that total, nearly 11,000 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in the United States.

As of the morning of March 19, there were 97 presumed positive cases of the new coronavirus in 22 counties in North Carolina, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

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