RALEIGH, N.C. — For the second time in a week, North Carolina broke its record for the highest number of new positive cases of COVID-19 on Saturday.
The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services reported 3,885 newly reported cases. Wednesday set the previous record when DHHS reported 3,119 new positive tests.
Two additional people are hospitalized because of the virus, up from the 1,423 reported on Friday.
DHHS said the Friday numbers were skewed because of changes to how reports were given.
Federal guidelines changed this week and now require hospitals to report any COVID-19 cases in their facilities instead of including only those in isolation. That caused the number of hospitalizations listed to increase.
Friday's numbers skewed lower in other areas as DHHS changed the time frame of when numbers would be reported. That meant that Friday's numbers were from a 10-hour period instead of a 24-hour period.
On Saturday, health officials reported that 4,756 North Carolinians had died from the virus — an additional 36 deaths from Friday — and 309,118 people had tested positive in the state since the pandemic began.
North Carolina remains under Phase 3 orders from Gov. Roy Cooper. But as people prepared to get together for the holidays and cases continued to spike, Cooper lowered his 25-person limit for gatherings to 10.
Dr. Mandy Cohen, the DHHS secretary, suggested that people who plan to get together with families get tested before gathering. Wake County planned to open two free drive-up testing locations on Saturday. One is in Raleigh and the other is in Wake Forest.
