Mecklenburg has not made quite as much progress. Our doubling time has gone from 2.85 days to 6 days.
In short, if we keep this up then we won't max out our ICU capacity.
This is a citizen-led pandemic response, and it appears to be working.
And here's the thing:
We only want to have to reopen ONCE.
We cannot let that happen.
We only want to restart this economic engine once because every time you turn it off it does a ton of damage.
We get a viral surge that undoes all the sacrifice people have made.
That's because once we reopen the odds of future outbreaks are 100%.
When they happen, we're either going to reclose OR have access to widespread testing that lets us quickly identify and contain the outbreak.
Yes, we still don't have as many test kits as we'd like, but PPE is the critical shortage right now.
(And specifically NC needs more surgical gowns.)
We've made over $150m worth of bids and only a fraction have been filled.
It's the wild west getting your hands on PPE right now and we need a smarter approach.
This directly impacts our ability to scale up testing, which directly impacts our ability to reopen and remain open.
PPE = Testing = Fully reopening