39 new COVID-19 cases in Craven County — IN ONE DAY

Craven County saw an increase of 39 COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, bringing its running total to 125 cases as of 11:30 a.m. on May 17, 2020. It is the largest one-day increase for Craven County since the start of the pandemic.

Of the 125 cases, 16 were confirmed on Saturday, May 16, 2020, and 23 have been confirmed today.

The new cases of COVID-19 are due to direct contact with a previously confirmed positive cases. The health department did not say whether the new cases were related to a cluster that has been growing since early last week.

There are now more than twice as many active cases (81) as there are recovered cases (40).

The recovered cases completed the necessary isolation requirement and have been free of COVID-19 symptoms for at least 72 hours.

Of the 125 cases, seven have been related to out of state travel, 24 are from community transmission, and 94 are a direct contact with a previously confirmed positive.

There have been four deaths related to COVID-19. Of the active COVID-19 cases, one is currently hospitalized.

The Craven County Health Department works with state, commercial, and private labs to track the number of confirmed positive COVID-19 cases in Craven County. Health care providers determine which lab they send their COVID-19 tests to. There are multiple hospital and commercial labs that conduct COVID-19 tests. These labs manage their own supplies and operate independently from the Department of Health and Human Services and the North Carolina State Laboratory of Public Health.

Craven County will continue to track and post the number of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases; however, it is important to recognize there are many people with COVID-19 who will not be included in daily counts of laboratory-confirmed cases, including:

• People who had minimal or no symptoms and were not tested.
• People who had symptoms but did not seek medical care.
• People who sought medical care but were not tested.
• People with COVID-19 in whom the virus was not detected by testing.

The number of laboratory-confirmed cases will increasingly provide a limited picture of the spread of infections in Craven County as COVID-19 becomes more widespread and the number of infected people who are not included in the daily counts of laboratory-confirmed cases increases.