By George Shaw
There has been some minor easing of guidelines in recent weeks. Governor Cooper announced yesterday the first significant steps to reopening North Carolina in the last six months. This loosening will go in effect roughly a week before Easter.
Previous standards generally maximized occupancy at 25% of capacity. The new standards permit 100% capacity for retail businesses, salons, museums and aquariums. In addition, they authorize 75% indoor capacity (100% for outdoors) for restaurants, breweries, fitness facilities and amusement parks. Bars, movie theatres and other high density facilities can reach 50% of indoor or outdoor capacity.
In addition, the number who can congregate indoors will increase from 25 to 50; outdoor groupings can grow from 50 to 100. There is no specific guidance for churches. Schools are to resume in person classes as much as feasible.
Key COVID-19 Data
North Carolina’s ratings remain better than most of the states. It remained the 15th lowest among the 50 states for the number of cases. It moved back to the13th lowest state in deaths per capita from the 12th least. And it remained the 27th highest rate of testing.
Trends for the last week have been mixed. New tests in North Carolina are down 10% vs. 25% the prior week. The number of new cases are up 12% (vs. down 23%) during the prior week. The percentage of positive tests dropped rose above the key metric of 5% of new cases, the highest weekly percent in a month. Hospitalizations dropped to 934 on March 20 but increased 5% since then.
North Carolina’s County Alert System was last updated on March 17, 2021. Only one county is currently rated red, 17 orange and 82 yellow. The previous March 4th report showed 6 red counties, 34 orange counties, and 60 yellow counties.
How is Wake County doing compared to the other 99 counties? Our county ranks 68th in the number of new cases and 48th in percent of positive tests. Wake’s share of North Carolina’s cases has been slowly rising for the last 30 days.
2.2 million Tar Heels have received their first dose while 1.3 million have their second shots as of March 22. An additional 82 thousand have a vaccine requiring a single shot. Our state continues to ramp up its vaccination program with 404,000 doses administered during the last full week (March 15). 22% residents of Wake County have received partial doses and 14% have completed their requirements.
There are two outbreaks currently reported in Wake Forest as of March 16, 2021. Kids R Kids Nursery has three staff and two students who have had the virus. Four staff and one student have also tested positive at Envision Science Academy. No similar outbreaks have been reported for Rolesville or Youngsville.
| 14 Day Moving Averages | Data | State | ||||||
| Criteria | 3-Mar | 10-Mar | 17-Mar | 24-Mar | Trend | Guideline | ||
| Testing | 43187 | 39665 | 35656 | 32739 | Down sharply | Level or down | ||
| New Cases | 2575 | 2010 | 1704 | 1742 | Up slightly | Level or down | ||
| % Positive Cases | 5.96% | 5.07% | 4.78% | 5.32% | Above 5% | 5% or less | ||
| Hospitalizations | 1489 | 1250 | 1080 | 991 | Down sharply | Level or down | ||
| Source: covid19.ncdhhs.gov/dashboard | ||||||||
| Notes: | ||||||||
| o Data is a 14 day moving average | ||||||||
| o It usually takes 3-4 days for complete data to be reported. This assessment adjusts today’s | ||||||||
| information to estimate the likely additions to historical data. | ||||||||
|
|
|
New cases in Wake County increased 19% last week, the second consecutive seven day period of consecutive growth. The number of new cases in our Zip Code 27587 rose 73% over the prior week, the highest level since mid-February. Zip Codes 27571 (Rolesville) and 27596 (Youngville) reported significant declines in the last week. There was a 45th death in 27587 but no new ones in 27596. Zip Code 27571 has not reported any deaths from the virus.
| North | Wake | Zip | Zip | Zip | |
| Data as of 3/24/2021 | Carolina | County | 27587 | 27571 | 27596 |
| Total Cases | 902350 | 79042 | 5965 | 668 | 1542 |
| Total Deaths | 11894 | 589 | 45 | 0 | 5 |
| Percent Deaths | 1.3% | 0.7% | 0.8% | 0.0% | 0.3% |
| Cases (last 7 days) | 12738 | 1526 | 145 | 14 | 41 |
| Deaths (last 7 days) | 137 | 13 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Cases/100 Population | 8.60 | 7.22 | 8.02 | 9.04 | 8.27 |
| Frequency (1 in x people) | 11.6 | 13.8 | 12.5 | 11.1 | 12.1 |
Federal Guidelines
The federal Coronavirus Task Force has developed stoplight charts for the states on three metrics. This is one of the indicators to help understand better when our state will continue to reopen. Areas exceeding the federal guidelines are shown red. Similar to indicators previously discussed, the numbers for new cases are moving in the wrong direction.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Outlook for the Future
The March 17 update to the IHME Model from the University of Washington shows a slight increase in the forecast for cases and deaths in North Carolina through July 1. The level for our state to be below the “red zone” for federal guidelines is about 10,500 new cases per week. The update for our state to fall below that level was pushed back from April 14 to April 26. This model predicts this figure to drop to around 3500 a week by May 5 to May 28. IHME forecasts that North Carolina will have less than 10 deaths per day by June 3.
#
