Lattice QCD studies on fluctuations and correlations of charm quantum number have established that deconfinement of charm degrees of freedom sets in around the chiral crossover temperature, $T_c$, i.e. charm degrees of freedom carrying fractional baryonic charge start to appear. By reexamining those same lattice QCD data we show that, in addition to the contributions from quark-like excitations, the partial pressure of charm degrees of freedom may still contain significant contributions from open-charm meson and baryon-like excitations associated with integral baryonic charges for temperatures up to $1.2~ T_c$. Charm quark-quasiparticles become the dominant degrees of freedom for temperatures $T>1.2~ T_c$.
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