Earlier this week, I laid out our path forward to a new normal dependent upon testing, tracing and trends. I wanted to share some key updates about our work on that front.
On testing, North Carolina has made great strides but we have more work to do. We’ve conducted at least 73,000 tests which is a long way from where we were a month ago. In fact, testing in our state has increased by 88 percent over the last two weeks.
But we need testing to be more widespread, and we need to use it to give us a better indication of where we are in this fight.
Today we announce a partnership with three of our state’s medical universities to use testing & tracing to help us determine how far the disease has spread in the state. This is part of a coordinated statewide effort to better understand the true number of COVID-19 infections.
The University of North Carolina, East Carolina University and Duke University are joining with us in this project and we’re confident their expertise will tell us more about how the disease spreads.
The President yesterday shared guidelines for the country to be able to re-open. It was good to see that many of the national criteria match what we’re doing here in North Carolina, but I and other Governors have been clear – we still need assistance with testing supplies & PPE.
The President has left the responsibility to me as Governor to make decisions about how & when we ease restrictions in our state. I accept that. But when we’re faced with global supply chain breakdowns when it comes to supplies & equipment, the federal government must help more.
Easing restrictions in our state without enough masks, gowns and gloves is like setting off on a 3-day camping trip with enough food for just one night. We need all of these supplies to collect more test samples and to ensure hospitals and first responders have what they need.
North Carolina now has 13 labs—public, private and hospital—that have performed at least 73,000 diagnostic tests. But we need more. We are doing our part and we have set up a testing surge work group. They're going to be important in this process.
On tracing, we are continuing to deploy groups to hotspots like nursing homes to find out where the virus has been spread and warn those who might be at risk. That’s another place we’ll need to surge more people & deploy more tests as we work to ease restrictions in our state.
Finally, we are looking every day at our trends in cases, people in the hospital and those seriously ill. We want those trends to be headed down so that North Carolinians can restore their lives and their livelihoods.
The federal guidance yesterday says that we need a downward trajectory in certain categories along with the ability to test and trace in order to begin the phase-in process of easing restrictions. I know we can do this.
There’s no perfect sequence or timing for reopening, but there is health guidance, business guidance & common sense. We’ll put those together with each of our three areas – testing, tracing & trends – to make those decisions and get people back to work.
As we head into another weekend, please remember that every day you stay at home and practice social distancing is another day saving lives & getting us closer to reopening more of our economy. You’ve made great efforts to keep yourselves & your families safe, and it is working.
