Every Friday, BPR's Helen Chickering talks withNC Health News founding editor Rose Hoban about the week’s coronavirus headlines and emerging issues linked to the pandemic. This week they discuss the increase in cases and hospitalizations during the first week of North Carolina’s Phase-2 reopening, the push by state lawmakers to reopen bars and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on state immunization rates.
HC: Friday (5/28) saw one of the biggest jumps in COVID-19 cases, and that seemed to tweak percent positive cases - which are starting to creep up a bit, and hospitalizations were up this week. State officials are stressing that testing is at an all time high, so some of this is expected, but are there concerns this could be a trend?
That's a good question. So, they did more than15,700 testsin the past day. So, they're doing a lot of tests. The percentage of tests had been down around 6% last week before the reopening - before phase two. And now it's up to 9% of the tests coming back are positive. And it's concerning. You noted that the hospitalizationshad gone up. Hospitalization is a lagging indicator, right? So you get exposed to COVID-19, it takes three to five days for you to start feeling symptoms and then it's a few days more before you feel bad enough to go to the emergency department or to a hospital. And so, you're looking at like a seven-day lag time, ten-day lag time between an upsurge in cases and an upsurge in hospitalizations. So, the fact that we've had an uptick in hospitalizations means that there was an uptick in cases more than a week ago. And now that we're seeing more of these cases being diagnosed now, it's like, are we going to just see the hospitalizations climb? It's very concerning.
HC: And this happened this week: “We're six days into phase two, and on a day when we're seeing some of our highest numbers of hospitalizations and death, the Senate wants to open bars.” HC: So that’s Governor Roy Cooper speaking at Thursday’s coronavirus news briefing. He had just been asked about the bar bill, which the Senate had passed, and later the House passed, which basically overrides his order to keep bars closed during Phase-2.
Yeah, thatbar bill. There's a really active kind of vibrant bar scene in Raleigh and I was talking to someone who, a bartender this morning, and he understands his boss's desire to reopen, but he is terrified because he can be behind the bar and having a mask. But there's going to be all these people, you have a drink, you have a second drink, your inhibitions are lower, people aren't going to be observing social distancing and who's going to be there - is the staff. And this guy was trying to make the argument like, Hey, are people ever going to come out? But as from what we've been seeing, people are coming out, younger people or folks who just don't take it seriously. So yeah, the numbers are concerning. And FYI, over the weekends we see less reporting. So, we always see a real surge in cases on Monday when you get the reports and you get the reports from these smaller hospitals. So, I'll be curious to see what we see on Monday.
HC:NC Health News looked at the impact of the pandemic on immunization rates in North Carolina. What did you find?
Well, we found that childhood immunizations just sankafter about early March. The data go by week, you know, week one of the year, week two of the year. So roundabout week 12. It just, it just, crashed. And so, there's been two months, three months of time where parents aren't getting into their doctor's offices to get their childhood vaccinations for their kids. And you know, there's some pediatricians out there who are worrying about trying to catch up.
In our story, one of the things I plotted was the numbers just for measles vaccinations. I think it was MMR and it really, it crashed out. And you know, people talk about coronavirus being infectious, contagious. Measles is like five times more contagious than COVID-19. You get one case of measles and it is through a population like wildfire. When I worked for Doctors Without Borders, we lived in dread fear of measles because of how quickly it can go through a population
HC: What’s NC Health Newsworking on for next week?
We've got more stuff on senior living, long-term care. We've got some stuff on unemployment due to covert and rural areas. I'm still trying to pull together that story on insurance and then I'm trying to get myself into an ICU doing some work on how COVID-19 has changed medical practice.
Rose Hoban is the founder and editor of NC Health News,as well as being the state government reporter. Hoban has been a registered nurse since 1992, but transitioned to journalism after earning degrees in public health policy and journalism. She's reported on science, health, policy and research in NC since 2005. Contact: editor at northcarolinahealthnews.org
