By George Shaw
Executive Summary
Trends remain mixed a week after the significant relaxation of stay-at-home orders. Although the positive test rate increased slightly, the number of new cases were flat. The number of hospitalized cases reached a seven-month low last Saturday but has rebounded somewhat in the intervening five days. Recent trends are generally more positive for Wake County and Zip Code 27587 than for North Carolina.
Key COVID-19 Data
North Carolina’s ratings remain better than most of the states. It went from the 15th to the 16th lowest among the 50 states for the number of cases. It remained the 13th lowest state in deaths per capita as well as the 27th highest rate of testing.
Trends for the last week continue to be mixed. New tests in North Carolina are up 18% vs. being flat the prior week. The number of new cases are up 1% (vs. up 9%) during the prior week. The percentage of positive tests edged higher to 5.7%, above the key metric of 5% of new cases. Hospitalizations dropped to 887 on March 27 but increased 8% since then.
North Carolina’s County Alert System was last updated on March 18, 2021. Only one county is currently rated red, 17 orange and 82 yellow. 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.
2.9 million Tar Heels have received their first dose while 1.7 million have their second shots as of March 30. An additional 126,000 have a vaccine requiring a single shot. Our state continues to ramp up its vaccination program with 454,000 doses administered during the last full week (March 22). 26% residents of Wake County have received partial doses and 16% have completed their requirements.
There are two outbreaks currently reported in Wake Forest as of March 30, 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 | 10-Mar | 17-Mar | 24-Mar | 31-Mar | Trend | Guideline | ||
| Testing | 39777 | 35802 | 34261 | 33228 | Down | Level or down | ||
| New Cases | 2010 | 1704 | 1742 | 1829 | Up | Level or down | ||
| % Positive Cases | 5.05% | 4.76% | 5.08% | 5.50% | Elevated | 5% or less | ||
| Hospitalizations | 1250 | 1080 | 989 | 940 | 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. | ||||||||
| o Wake County added 68 additional deaths on March 25. The total for North Carolina was not adjusted. | ||||||||
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New cases in Wake County declined 4% last week, reversing two seven-day periods of consecutive growth. The number of new cases in our Zip Code 27587 declined from 145 to 112 during the last week. Zip Codes 27571 (Rolesville) rose from 14 to 18 last week and 27596 (Youngville) remained flat at 41 new cases. In addition, there were 27 additional fatalities in our county in the last seven days, the highest level in three weeks. Zip Code 27587 reported two new deaths as well as one from the restatement reported by Wake County. Zip Code 27571 reported its first death as part of the March 25 corrected data.
| North | Wake | Zip | Zip | Zip | |
| Data as of 3/31/2021 | Carolina | County | 27587 | 27571 | 27596 |
| Total Cases | 915220 | 80510 | 6077 | 686 | 1583 |
| Total Deaths | 12112 | 684 | 48 | 1 | 5 |
| Percent Deaths | 1.3% | 0.8% | 0.8% | 0.1% | 0.3% |
| Cases (last 7 days) | 12870 | 1468 | 112 | 18 | 41 |
| Deaths (last 7 days) | 218 | 95 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| Cases/100 Population | 8.73 | 7.36 | 8.17 | 9.28 | 8.49 |
| Frequency (1 in x people) | 11.5 | 13.6 | 12.2 | 10.8 | 11.8 |
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 for North Carolina but improving for Wake County as well as our zip code.
| Federal Guidelines (data for last seven days) | ||||||
| North Carolina | 10-Mar | 17-Mar | 24-Mar | 31-Mar | vs. Guideline | Guideline |
| New Cases | 11769 | 9587 | 10734 | 12870 | 123% | 10500 |
| Positive Test Rate | 4.6% | 5.0% | 5.6% | 5.7% | 56.6% | |
| Deaths | 232 | 162 | 137 | 218 | 104% | 210 |
| Wake County | ||||||
| New Cases | 1275 | 1284 | 1526 | 1468 | 135% | 1085 |
| Deaths | 27 | 17 | 13 | 27 | 124% | 21.7 |
| Zip 27587 | ||||||
| New Cases | 88 | 84 | 145 | 112 | 145% | 77 |
| Deaths | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 195% | 1.54 |
| Notes: | ||||||
| o Wake County added 68 additional deaths on March 25. | ||||||
Outlook for the Future
The March 25 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 metrics have improved slightly in the last week. The update for our state to fall below that level moved up from April 26 to April 23. This model predicts this figure to drop to around 3,500 a week by May 28 compared to May 27 in the prior forecast. IHME forecasts that North Carolina will have less than 10 deaths per day by June 4 vs. June 3 in the prior report.
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