Governor Cooper announces COVID-19 study partnership with ECU, UNC and Duke
Governor Cooper’s statement at Friday afternoon’s press conference:
“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 and 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 and PPE.
“The President has left the responsibility to me as Governor to make decisions about how and 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 and 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 workgroup. 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 and 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.”
Press release from Governor Cooper’s office on Friday afternoon:
NCDHHS, Universities, Health Systems Partner to Study of COVID-19 Cases with Mild or No Symptoms
RALEIGH: Governor Roy Cooper today announced that the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) is working with academic partners across the state to understand how widespread cases of COVID-19 with mild or no symptoms are in the state and to monitor prevalence of the disease over time.
“North Carolina’s actions to flatten the curve and fight COVID-19 are working. We know we need more testing of all types, and this research partnership will help us better understand the virus so we can keep our communities safe as we seek to ease restrictions,” said Governor Cooper.
NC DHHS is collaborating with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University, and East Carolina University to assess changes in COVID-19 prevalence in Chatham, Pitt, Cabarrus counties. Participants will be recruited across different populations and monitored over several months to understand the spread of the virus.
“We have to focus our collective resources – across government, private and public sectors – to defeat this virus. Our research partners are integral to winning the fight,” NCDHHS Secretary Mandy Cohen, MD said.
“These studies will seek to address some important knowledge gaps while building on existing partnerships including the North Carolina Partnership for Excellence in Applied Epidemiology, a collaboration between the DHHS and UNC Chapel Hill,” said Dr. Allison Aiello, Professor of Epidemiology at UNC.
The research is part of a coordinated statewide effort to learn more about what percentage of people have no symptoms and better understand the true number of COVID-19 infection in the state.
Earlier this week, Governor Cooper charted a path forward for combating COVID-19 and easing certain restrictions. The plan focuses on the need for testing, tracing and trends to move in the right direction.
To learn more about Governor Cooper’s path forward for North Carolina and how testing, tracing and trends will help determine when to loosen restrictions for COVID-19, visit nc.gov/covid19.
