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NORTH CAROLINA — North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper on Wednesday announced the Tar Hill State will stay in Phase 2 of its reopening plan for five more weeks, meaning things like gyms, bars and movie theaters will not reopen until Sept. 11 at the earliest.
Cooper said new cases and deaths across the state are showing signs of stabilizing. His decision to extend the current reopening phase, he said, is to turn stable case numbers into declining numbers.
“As I said last week, stable is good, but decreasing is better,” Cooper said, according to WTVD. “And while we’re seeing stabilization of our numbers, that doesn’t mean we can let up. We know this stability is fragile and these trends can change quickly if we let down our guards.”
The announcement came alongside news on Wednesday that another 1,127 cases of the coronavirus had been diagnosed across the state, bringing the pandemic’s total to 129,288 in North Carolina.
Another 40 deaths were reported on Wednesday as well, bringing the state’s death toll to 2,050.
The health department reports that a total of 1,873,668 people have been tested for the virus. Of them, 129,288 have received a positive test result, meaning 9 percent of all tests have returned a positive result.
Hospitals
With 93 percent of the state’s hospitals reporting, health department data shows 1,167 people are hospitalized because of COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. The number grew by only one from Tuesday.
On Tuesday, 506 people more people were admitted to state hospitals with suspected cases of the coronavirus, and 132 people were admitted with lab confirmation that they did, in fact, have the virus.
Across the state, 346 adults in North Carolina are in hospital ICUs because of COVID-19 on Tuesday, up slightly from the day prior. Further, the number of people using ventilators has also decreased from 910 on Monday to 864 on Wednesday. The state reports 2,457 ventilators remain available, should they be necessary.
Testing
A number of testing locations and events are scheduled to provide coronavirus testing to North Carolina residents in the coming days. A list of sites and events can be found on the state’s Community Testing Event website.
The website states some events could have been canceled or rescheduled in the wake of Hurricane Isaias, which left a patch of major flooding and damage to buildings, cars and the environment.
A NCDHHS spokesperson told Patch via email that residents hoping to get tested in the coming days should contact local officials or organizers to confirm testing hours and availability.
“During a hurricane or tropical storm, the safety of staff and of people getting tested is prioritized,” the spokesperson said. “In response to [Hurricane] Isaias, individual testing events will determine whether they will cancel, reschedule or change logistics for their community testing event.”
This article originally appeared on the Charlotte Patch