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North Carolina State Epidemiologist Dr. Zack Moore said: “This is just the beginning” of COVID-19 in North Carolina.
Moore said as more people are tested, cases in North Carolina will continue to increase quickly.
We have to acknowledge the bad news that this is just the beginning. We are in the acceleration phase of the pandemic in North Carolina, we certainly have not peaked.
It takes up to two weeks for someone to show symptoms of COVID-19 and get diagnosed with the virus once they are infected.
Moore said that it is also too soon to tell if the social distancing and stay-at-home orders implemented by the government have flattened the virus curve.
It is also important to not rely solely on laboratory tests to track coronavirus, according to Moore.
Many positive cases aren’t being counted because they are still waiting to be tested, and there is a national shortage of tests.
Moore said just because a county in North Carolina doesn’t have a laboratory-confirmed cases doesn’t mean the county is virus-free.
Laboratory confirmed case counts are not the whole picture, Moore said. They are important, but they’re not the whole picture.
Moore added that flu numbers have started to go down, which should help the healthcare system fight COVID-19.
