COVID-19 testing hit a record pre-Thanksgiving. Some Meck sites ran out of supplies.

Mecklenburg residents turned out for COVID-19 testing in record numbers ahead of Thanksgiving and maxed out the screening capacity at some sites in the county.

And nearly all of the county’s key coronavirus metrics spiked over Thanksgiving weekend — far surpassing previous peak coronavirus levels in July.

Dr. Jennifer Womack, an internist at Tryon Medical Partners, said testing demand skyrocketed as people sought to rule out the possibility of infection before gathering with friends and loved ones. But the number of Tryon patients experiencing cold and flu symptoms — considered a priority group for COVID-19 testing — also grew.

“We actually had so much demand that we had to stop scheduling patients who just wanted a test before traveling to make space for the sick people,” said Womack, who’s helping lead the practice’s COVID-19 response. “The demand was just so, so high. We just couldn’t keep it up.”

For four months, health officials have been releasing daily testing levels for Mecklenburg residents, weeding out the numbers of non-county residents who were tested to better gauge local coronavirus trendlines.

November is the first time the county recorded several days of more than 4,000 residents getting coronavirus tests on a single day. On some days, more than 5,000 people got tested.

On Nov. 23, for example, 5,421 people were tested for COVID-19, according to county public health data. That’s nearly double the volume recorded at the start of November.

In total, almost 110,000 Mecklenburg residents were tested in November. That compares to roughly 89,700 in October; 70,250 in September; and 63,650 in August, an Observer analysis shows.

But it’s unclear exactly how high the demand for testing was in the greater Charlotte region surrounding Thanksgiving. At some sites, cars looped around in lines for hours, forging a visible reminder of the strained resources that hampered officials at the start of the pandemic.

“One of the biggest failures is we are unable, still, to be able to identify rapidly who is infected and who is not,” Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told the Observer. “This is a government function that they’ve set up and bungled at the federal level, at the state level (and) at the local level.”

A 30% testing increase

Ahead of Thanksgiving, county and state officials had urged caution, asking North Carolinians to stay home over the holidays and avoid crowded gatherings and Black Friday shopping trips.

But officials also told residents to get tested before traveling or seeing family, if staying home wasn’t an option.

Mecklenburg saw as much as a 30% increase in testing ahead of Thanksgiving, county Public Health Director Gibbie Harris said in a statement. Hundreds of people were tested at health department clinics on Billingsley and Beatties Ford roads, she told county commissioners during their meeting Tuesday.

Some mobile sites ran out of testing supplies because of the extreme changes in testing demand. For example, the Bojangles testing site saw 200 people the day before Thanksgiving, and only 20 on Saturday, after the holiday, Harris said.

Novant Health, Charlotte’s second-largest hospital system, also saw a “significant increase” in people getting tested before Thanksgiving, spokeswoman Ashton Miller said in an email. Because of the demand, it’s taking longer to get test results back — potentially up to a week, she said. Miller said Novant isn’t worried about running out of testing supplies.

Atrium Health did not respond to Observer questions about testing volumes.

Testing isn’t a guarantee and can only tell people if they are positive for COVID-19 at the time they are tested, Harris said. It’s crucial that people continue to follow other coronavirus safeguards, like wearing a face mask and social distancing.

“No one should rely on testing to keep them safe at any time,” Harris said.

Charlotte COVID-19 trends

Mecklenburg’s coronavirus numbers spiked on and after Thanksgiving, data released by the county on Tuesday show. Both COVID-19 hospitalizations and the county’s daily coronavirus case tally now exceed Mecklenburg’s July peak, according to state and county numbers.

The county’s hospitalizations topped 200 on Thanksgiving for the first time since July. During the summer peak, hospitalizationsreached 210 on July 26. Daily hospitalizations hit 215 on Thursday, 221 on Friday and 242 on Saturday, the most recent data show.

The seven-day average of daily coronavirus cases peaked at 372 in July — that number hit 374 on Thursday and 388 on Friday.

“Most models are indicating the next four to six weeks are going to be tough for Mecklenburg County,” Harris told commissioners. “There’s a possibility in some of these models that we may peak around late December, just before Christmas. But none of these models account for surges we may see after Thanksgiving activities.”

In the last two weeks, the county’s seven-day average for testing positivity rate has twice hit 8.9% — the highest level since August.

State leaders and the World Health Organization use a 5% threshold when contemplating tightening or easing restrictions. A higher number indicates the virus is spreading more rapidly in a community.

Michael Thompson, associate chair of the Public Health Sciences department at UNC Charlotte, warned Mecklenburg’s positivity rate may be muddled this week due to fluctuations in testing around Thanksgiving.

The rate might have appeared lower leading up to the holiday, due to a substantially higher number of people seeking a test without known COVID-19 exposures or symptoms, Thompson said. And over the holiday, testing dipped dramatically, with likely only the sickest people wanting a diagnosis.

“It makes it hard to figure out the trend,” Thompson said. “The hospitalizations will kind of give us the anchor point around which we can calibrate that data.”

Testing challenges?

Already, preparations are underway to manage a deluge of testing appointments around the Christmas holiday.

It is unclear if health officials will need to revise the eligibility criteria for COVID-19 testing, if levels become untenable. Last spring, testing was limited to people with severe symptoms, until testing capacity dramatically expanded.

At Tryon Medical, Womack said she’s most concerned about the staffing levels needed to accommodate the second coronavirus surge — on top of caring for patients with other illnesses this winter.

“We have multiple staff members on site every day,” Womack said. “It’s not a one-man show. It takes an army.”

Harris, the county health director, said she’s worried about how COVID-19 testing expenses will be reimbursed after Dec. 31 — when the federal CARES Act expires. The assistance made it possible for Mecklenburg and healthcare partners to provide free testing for uninsured individuals, as well as cover co-payments for those with insurance.

“The need for testing is not going to end at this point,” Harris told commissioners.