Health Team

Another record: NC hospitals seeing post-holiday coronavirus surge

North Carolina hospitals are beginning to feel the brunt of last month's holiday celebrations. On Tuesday the number of people hospitalized for treatment of COVID-19 climbed to a record 3,781, and the state reported another 5,285 positive tests for the virus.

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RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina hospitals are beginning to feel the brunt of last month's holiday celebrations. On Tuesday the number of people hospitalized for treatment of COVID-19 climbed to a record 3,781, and the state reported another 5,285 positive tests for the virus.

Experts warned holiday travels and gatherings could help fuel another surge of Covid-19 infections. Yet millions of Americans traveled anyway -- with more than 1.3 million people -- a pandemic record -- screened by the TSA on Sunday alone.

Nationwide, hospitalizations hit another grim record Monday, with more than 128,200 Covid-19 patients, according to the COVID Tracking Project. But some states are warning the worse may be yet ahead.

In North Carolina, the seven-day rolling average of new cases reached 7,302 on Tuesday. The state is seeing 16.5% of tests return positive. While many people who test positive show only minimal symptoms, almost 7,000 people have died in the state.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said the state had "more patients with Covid in ICU beds at the end of last week than we have had at any other period throughout this pandemic."

And he expects "some very large numbers with the spread from the holiday gatherings combined with the backlog and testing and reporting that may have occurred during the last 10 days."

After marking a particularly deadly day in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday there has been a spike following the recent social gatherings that took place.

"It is clear that the increase through the holidays, increased the infection rate and increased the number of people who are now walking into hospitals," the governor said.

In California -- where at least two regions have zero ICU beds left -- infections are continuing to soar.

"We are heading into what we anticipate as a surge on top of a surge," Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a Monday news conference. "It's going to put a lot of pressure on hospitals and I see it coming out of the holidays."

It's what happened after Thanksgiving as well. Weeks ago, Los Angeles officials said part of the brutal surge in infections and hospitalized patients they were seeing was due to Thanksgiving gatherings. Now, they asked residents to do their part to avoid even higher numbers.

"If we fail to use the tools currently available, our frontline health care workers, now caring for distressingly large numbers of Covid-19 patients, will face many more weeks of increasing numbers of patients and the heartbreaking loss of many lives," Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said in a statement Monday.

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