COVID testing picks up in Charlotte amid rising numbers and breakthrough cases

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (FOX 46) – COVID-19 testing is picking up immensely in Charlotte. A testing site says it is seeing about four times the number of people getting tested in just the last week.

At the same time, we’re learning of COVID breakthrough cases where people were vaccinated and then tested positive.

“I won’t end up in the hospital, I won’t die,” said a vaccinated woman in line for COVID testing at StarMed Saturday.

That’s why she got the COVID-19 vaccine.

The woman didn’t want to be on camera or give her name, but she told Fox 46 how it felt to get the call that she was exposed to COVID at work by a vaccinated co-worker who tested positive for the virus.

“I think the scariness is the wait and they say, ‘You’re here to get it today, but you need to re-test again just to be sure,” she said.

StarMed says the number of people getting tested quadrupled in just the last week. They were testing about 70 people a day and all of a sudden, it jumped up to close to 300.

There are long lines for testing, but short ones for the vaccine.

“Because of my job requiring me to take it, I decided I needed to take it, and also I was exposed to someone who tested positive,” said Abraham Karva, who was getting his shot Saturday.

Mecklenburg County just released numbers which say between late March and late July, 376 people, who are fully vaccinated, tested positive for COVID.

Those breakthrough cases represent less than 1% of the total people fully vaccinated in Mecklenburg County.

“Was it (the vaccine) really worth me doing it?” the vaccinated woman asked. “I was hesitant in getting it at first, but because of the underlying issues, it basically was ‘you need to get it.”

Now this woman waits on her test results, believing if she’s a breakthrough case, she still made the right call to get the shot.

“The hope is that it won’t be as bad, it won’t linger as long,” she said.

Doctors continue to say if you got the shot, and you do get COVID, you are much less likely to be in the hospital or die from the virus than if you’re unvaccinated.