Coronavirus has spread to several new counties near Charlotte
Some counties surrounding Charlotte have begun getting their first confirmed cases of coronavirus.
On Friday, officials in Catawba County announced their first case, involving a person who resides in an assisted living center. The patient is hospitalized and “doing well in isolation,” the county health department said in a news release.
Cleveland County also had its first resident test positive for COVID-19, WBTV reported Friday. The TV station quoted a county health official who said the infected person is isolated and doing well at home.
On Thursday, meanwhile, Union and Cabarrus counties each reported their second cases. The person recently diagnosed in Cabarrus — a non-resident who was traveling through the county — is receiving care in a local facility, the Cabarrus Health Alliance said.
Rowan County has also reported two recent cases — one of them a Livingstone College student.
And on Wednesday, Gaston and Lincoln counties announced their first confirmed cases, while Iredell County reported its second known case.
Statewide, more than 160 people have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a tally by the Raleigh News and Observer. Mecklenburg has had 43 of those cases — more than any other North Carolina county.
The total has climbed steadily since the first coronavirus case was reported in North Carolina on March 3. Cases have been reported in 33 of the state’s 100 counties.
State-issued testing kits for COVID-19 are still in short supply in some counties. In response to a collaborative project by six newsrooms in North Carolina, many county health departments across the state said earlier this week that the state had initially made just three test kits available to each county.
Some counties, including Mecklenburg, have turned to private labs to fill the gap. In a Thursday news release, North Carolina-based LabCorp announced that it now has the ability to perform more than 20,000 COVID-19 tests per day.
As of Friday, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services said it was aware of about 3,200 COVID-19 tests that have been conducted statewide so far.
Ten Tryon project on hold
The fast-spreading virus has prompted warnings about social distancing and bans on large gatherings. In the process, it has prompted schools, restaurants and businesses to close, hammering the economy.
And now it appears to be slowing at least one development plan.
Armada Hoffler Properties announced Thursday that it has paused construction on the Ten Tryon project, a 15-story high rise planned for North Tryon Street between Ninth and Tenth streets. The project was slated to include a Publix supermarket in a 28,000-square-foot space.
Construction on the tower has already been delayed in the past. Developers announced the project in 2016 and had planned to complete it in 2018.
The company is also deferring the Chronicle Mill project in Belmont.
Construction on both projects had been scheduled to start in the second quarter of 2020, but will now be deferred “until economic conditions stabilize,” Armada Hoffler announced in a news release.
Across the state, the coronavirus is putting thousands of people out of work. The number of North Carolinians who have filed for unemployment this week is approaching 50,000, dwarfing the number who file in a typical week.
No plans for shelter in place
On Friday, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced that his office is not issuing a shelter-in-place order for the state. Mecklenburg County on Thursday said it, too, has no current plans to order people to shelter in place.
In California, by contrast, Gov. Gavin Newsom has issued a statewide “stay at home” order, asking all Californians to remain at home unless they have an essential reason to go out.
Since Thursday, state officials have reported the first two known cases in which people from North Carolina contracted the virus through “community spread.”
Until then, all North Carolina coronavirus patients had been exposed to someone who had tested positive for the virus or were connected to someone who had traveled from elsewhere. In cases of community spread, people are infected without knowing how or where they were exposed.
Many who contract the coronavirus simply recover at home. Just four patients in North Carolina are currently hospitalized, State Health Director Elizabeth Tilson said at a news conference Friday afternoon.
But North Carolina hospitals may not have enough beds to care for all the coronavirus patients who will need advanced health care as the infection spreads, according to a Harvard University analysis.
The projections in that study show that the Charlotte region is among the spots that could run out of hospital beds if the virus spreads quickly. ProPublica and The New York Times were the first to report the study.
But many North Carolinians have at least one reason to breathe easier. Because of the pandemic, the North Carolina Department of Revenue and the IRS announced this week that the tax-filing deadline for state and federal taxes has been extended from April 15 to July 15.
This story was originally published March 20, 2020 at 11:51 AM with the headline "Coronavirus has spread to several new counties near Charlotte."
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