New modeling on virus peak coming as nurses beg for protective gear

Cohen said the state is gathering as much personal protective gear as it can right now, identifying potential locations for overflow hospital beds and generally preparing for a coming storm. But she said detailed modeling on needs will likely be "more like a weather report," predicting probabilities, and that state officials don't yet feel comfortable with the data.

She hoped to share "some preliminary understanding" next week.

"I don't think we will ever have the kind of precision that we would ultimately desire, but we're going to do the best that we can," Cohen said.

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Mecklenburg County Public Health Director Gibbie Harris included that model in her own presentation to lawmakers Thursday morning, which followed Cohen's, but she acknowledged the challenge of predicting this wave.

"We can look at it three days from now, and it may be different," Harris said.

Harris got emotional as she spoke about the coming surge and the need nurses and other frontline medical workers have for personal protective gear to keep them from getting infected as they test and treat others.

Harris said the numbers she's seeing are "what's keeping me up at night." Then she paused to gather herself and apologized for letting her emotions burn through.

Representatives from the state's nursing association also briefed legislators, meeting via video conference as part of a COVID-19 working group. They both said personal protective equipment, or PPE, is the No. 1 need by far.

The federal government's national stockpile is essentially exhausted, officials announced late Wednesday.

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North Carolina got multiple shipments and has supplies warehoused for now, but Cohen and other state officials have made it clear it won't be enough. Some companies, including Hanes and Brooks Brothers, have transitioned their factories in the state to make more masks and other protective equipment, and the sign factory manned by state prisoners is churning out face shields. But at daily briefings, top state officials say over and over: Health workers will need more

"We were inundated with requests from nurses to get more support on the front lines," North Carolina Nurses Association Chief Executive Tina Gordon said Thursday. "Requests for PPE were overwhelming."

This is one of the reasons the state put in place more stringent coronavirus testing protocols. The tests involve sticking a swab deep into nasal passages, and the person being tested is likely to cough as it's administered.

"With those tests, we've been burning through PPE," Harris told lawmakers.

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Gordon also asked lawmakers to "aggressively support" stay-at-home orders and social distancing mandates, telling them their opinion carries weight with people in their communities.

"This is the best thing that we can do in the short term," she said.

She also asked them to use their influence with the federal government to ramp up PPE production.

Cohen said the state is working multiple avenues to increase production. The state has ordered more than $100 million worth of equipment from private vendors but so far has received very little of it.

"We have a lot of irons in the fire," she said."We don't know which things will bear fruit yet."

The secretary also said that the call for retirees and volunteers with medical training to help at hospitals when the surge comes has gone well, with more than 1,000 people registered so far.

The state's nursing board has also eased a number of requirements to boost numbers.