COVID-19 update for our area

By George Shaw

Governor Cooper’s announcement on September 30 that North Carolina will move to the next phase of reopening will occur at 5 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 2. The changes were based on improvements in the key tracking measures for COVID-19. This phase will last until Friday, October 23.

As the size of indoor gatherings remains 25 and that for outdoor events stays at 50 people, there is likely to be little impact on food security in our area. Two of our pantries remain closed or on partial schedule.

The State of North Carolina tracks four primary metrics to determine whether to relax guidelines on reopening the economy.  One of these measures showed improvement in the last week; the others have increased recently.

North Carolina’s metrics remain good compared to the majority of states.   It ranks 29th among the 50 states for the number of cases (compared to 28th last week) and 31st for deaths from the virus on a per capita basis (up from 32nd last week).  It slipped from the 27th highest rate of tests to the 28th in the last week.

The number of new cases increased about 8% from 8477 two weeks ago to 9202 last week.  However, the number of deaths increased from 167 last week to 216 this week.

The 14 day moving average for new cases has flattened out and begun rising again for most metrics.  This average peaked for tests on September 24.  However, the moving average has decreased in the last 7-10 days for new cases, percentage of positive cases as well as hospitalization.  Nevertheless, the metrics continue to track close to the guidelines used to reopen North Carolina.

New cases in Wake County declined from 540 to 686 in the last week, reversing the downward trend of the prior week.  Deaths, however, decreased from 15 to 10.

New cases in our Zip Code 27587 increased again, rising from 39 last week to 46 for the last seven days.  No new deaths were reported last week.

Zip Code 27571 (Rolesville) reported 6 new cases this past week up from 4 cases the prior seven days.  Zip 27596 (Youngsville) rose by 15 cases, an increase from the 8 cases reported for the previous week.  Zip 27571 has reported no deaths; Zip 27596 continues to report a single fatality.

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