Raleigh, NC – The number of coronavirus-related deaths in North Carolina continues to rise, with the state surpassing 9,000 deaths in the pandemic Thursday.
A further 131 deaths were reported Thursday, the sixth time in eight days that the state has exceeded 100. That period has become the deadliest for the state since the pandemic started last March, with 846 dead since January 21.
At the start of the pandemic, the state did not register 846 deaths until nearly three months had passed.
“In the past week and a half, one of the days was the highest we’ve had in hospital deaths during the entire pandemic,” said Dr. Brian Burrows, director of the emergency department at Duke Regional Hospital in Durham.
“The tricky thing is not seeing people with their loved ones when they’re on their last breath,” said Burrows. ‘You have people who are too sick to have one iPad to talk to their families. “
Bee WakeMed in Raleigh, pulmonologist and intensive care specialist Dr. Sachin Patel said the death certificates are correct.
“We will have a day when nearly four people pass – some of them older, some young enough to be our siblings,” Patel said.
Eighty-three percent of the deaths to date have been people 65 and older. That group is now at the forefront of the line for vaccinations against the virus. Less than 4 percent of the deaths were in people under age 50.
Still, Burrows said, the virus can affect people you wouldn’t expect.
“When you see someone the same age as you being intubated for this virus, it looks like, ‘Oh my god,’” he said.
The number of new infections and COVID-19 hospitalizations has stabilized in recent days, following an increase in early January following vacations in which many people ignored the advice of public health officials to avoid traveling and getting together with family and friends.
The 3,238 people treated for the virus in hospitals in North Carolina on Thursday were the fewest since Dec. 27, and the seven-day average of 3,361 COVID-19 hospital patients is the lowest since New Year’s Day.
About 7.9 percent of coronavirus tests reported Thursday were positive, the lowest level in more than two months.
Another 6,490 new cases of coronavirus were reported statewide on Thursday, but the moving seven-day average of new cases has dropped from 8,654 per day on Jan. 12 to 5,843 per day now, which is the first time since Jan. 1 that the average has declined. than 6000 per day.
“It was predicted, and unfortunately we were right: the cases went up, the hospitalizations went up and the deaths went up too,” said Rachel Roper, an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at East Carolina University. .
Dr. Shannon Carson, division chief of Pulmonary Diseases and Critical Care Medicine at the UNC School of Medicine, said virus-related deaths are the latest measure of peak after infections and hospitalizations.
“After a week or two, they may need to be hospitalized,” Carson said, adding that someone could be transferred to an intensive care unit after four or five days in the hospital. “Nearly 30 percent of them, if they reach the intensive care unit, will not survive hospitalization.”
‘The COVID cases, they can get in [hospitals] for weeks, and they can sit on the fans for weeks – and in some cases I’ve heard for months – and then people can die a little longer after they get infected, ”said Roper.
Patel said people need to understand how dangerous the virus can be.
“This is far from over,” he said. “We are really in the middle of it now and it will get worse in March.”