North Carolina governor: More COVID-19 test supplies needed

(AP) North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper responded to President Donald Trump’s plan to reopen the economy by stressing that the state needs the federal government’s help supplying medical professionals to ramp up COVID-19 testing.

Commerce officials also said Friday that North Carolina was tripling the staff handling unemployment claims as the state faces a crush of hundreds of thousands requests. And an outbreak at a North Carolina prison grew to nearly 150 inmates.

Trump told governors Thursday that restrictions could be eased to allow businesses to reopen in the coming weeks in areas that have extensive testing and a decline in cases.

Hours later, Cooper, a Democrat, said states need more supplies from the federal government to expand testing to levels needed to decide on easing business restrictions.

“If you notice the guidelines today ... it says that testing is the responsibility of the states. We’ve figured that out. But we need significant help from the federal government right now,” Cooper told MSNBC host Chris Hayes.

He added that “the biggest problem that we have right now is testing capacity. And what we need from the federal government right now is help on that testing capacity, and with supplies, and with personal protective equipment.”

He said public and private labs have the ability to expand testing but that in order to do so, medical professionals need certain key supplies including the protective gear.

The governor’s stay-at-home order that limits nonessential businesses is in effect through April 29. Earlier in the week, he announced a framework for gradually reopening the state’s economy that will hinge on more widespread testing, extensive efforts to track down people in contact with the sick and slowed case and hospital rates.

On Friday, the state’s employment security division announced it will have increased its staffing to 1,600 by the end of next week to handle unemployment claims, more than triple its normal workforce. That includes temporary staff and private call center workers. The state has received a surge of more than 630,000 unemployment claims in the past month, most of them attributed to the economic slowdown spurred by efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19. Some out-of-work residents have complained of difficulty getting their claims processed.

“This will be the largest number of people working to provide unemployment benefits in North Carolina’s history,” Lockhart Taylor, assistant secretary of the Division of Employment Security, said in a statement.

State health officials reported more than 5,800 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Friday, up by about 400 since the previous day. The state said about 150 people have died and more than 400 are currently hospitalized.

State and federal corrections officials are also fighting outbreaks at prisons in North Carolina. The Wayne County Health Department said in a news release that 149 inmates had tested positive for the virus at the Neuse Correctional Institution, a state prison in Goldsboro. County health officials expect the number to rise as the prison completes testing on all of its 700 inmates.

Meanwhile, the federal Board of Prisons reported that more than 50 inmates and 25 staff have tested positive for the virus at the medium-security federal correctional institution in Butner, making it among the largest outbreaks in the federal system. Another 14 inmates have tested positive at the nearby low-security prison in Butner, and the two facilities have a combined four deaths.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, and the vast majority survive. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause pneumonia or death.

___

Follow Drew on Twitter at www.twitter.com/JonathanLDrew.

___

Follow AP coverage of the pandemic at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.