Meck. County hosting at-home COVID test giveaway, doctors believe hospitalizations have peaked

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - Mecklenburg County, Novant Health, and Atrium Health officials provided an update Wednesday on the latest COVID-19 statistics as the Omicron surge continues, and there have been some encouraging signs.

Novant Health Chief Clinical Officer, Dr. Sid Fletcher says as of 10-12 days ago, the county reached its hospitalizations peak, with numbers of percent positivity and daily case counts beginning to slowly decline.

Numbers are still high, though, with the percent positivity rate remaining above 30 percent, far from the 5 percent goal, according to Meck County health director Dr. Raynard Washington.

State officials also reported 5,090 people are hospitalized with the virus in North Carolina as of Wednesday, which is a record for the state.

However, there has been a “pretty significant” testing demand drop and on Saturday at 10 a.m., the county will be providing free at-home COVID tests and medical-grade masks at North Meck High School in Huntersville and the Harper campus of CPCC in southwest Charlotte.

Earlier this week, WBTV took an inside look at three new COVID-testing sites in the county.

VACCINE TEAM: Click here for the latest news on the COVID-19 vaccination in North Carolina

While hospitalizations are slowly dropping, Novant Health Chief Clinical Officer, Dr. Sid Fletcher continues to encourage getting vaccinated.

“We’ve seen that the vaccines are really great at what they do in preventions of hospitalizations and death in every variant we’ve seen,” Fletcher said. “We really want to reduce the number of hosts, those who are unvaccinated, that are in the communities because that’s what viruses do. They replicate. The more people that are vaccinated, the better we will do against this.”

Around 93 percent of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in the county are unvaccinated or have not received their boosters.

“We need you to keep doing the things that keep us all safe to help us help you,” Atrium Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jim Hunter said.

Copyright 2022 WBTV. All rights reserved.