GREENSBORO, N.C. — This week the public heard from President Biden's Covid-19 team for the first time. We're also getting a new picture of how they view North Carolina's response to the virus. The team plans to publish weekly breakdowns of coronavirus in each state.
This week's report shows North Carolina made big improvements in the number of new covid cases, down 20 percent from last week. Our number of deaths is also down 12 percent.
But the White House highlights an alarming trend: the number of hospitals with short supplies in North Carolina is up 15 percent. Digging in further, the report shows about half of North Carolina hospitals will run out of surgical gowns and gloves in 30 days. And about 5 percent of places don't have enough surgical masks left to make it through the weekend.
There's one other number the White House is keeping a close eye on: the number of vaccines given out. So far North Carolina's Mandy Cohen says we've given out 98.8 percent of the vaccines sent to our state. And she is glad the White House is watching our progress.
"There is an opportunity for us if we can keep demonstrating that we can get through our first doses of the vaccine that we are ready to take on more," Cohen said.
Meaning this White House report might end up being a shot in the arm of North Carolina's vaccination efforts.
