NC’s track record much better than most states

By George Shaw

Executive Summary

Trends have been mixed again during the last week.  North Carolina continues to have a track record much better than most states in terms of the proportionate number of cases and the mortality rate from the virus.  This has occurred despite the state’s track record in testing and vaccinations being average among the states.   The spike in cases across Wake County the previous week did not repeat itself.  A growing concern is that the number of hospitalizations from more serious cases in the last six months.  Yet, the elevated data for new cases and the positive test rate remain a fraction of the worst days of mid-January.  The number of vaccinations remains around 400,000 per week.

Key COVID-19 Data

North Carolina’s ratings remain better than most of the states.   It went from the 14th to the 15th lowest among the 50 states for the number of cases during the last week.  It remained the 13th lowest state in deaths per person well as the 27th highest rate of testing.

Data for the last seven days are again mixed in our state.  New tests in North Carolina are down 2% vs. being up 2% the prior week. This shift is largely due to the accelerating rate of vaccinations. The number of new cases are down 5% (vs. up 31%) during the prior week.  The percentage of positive tests increased slightly from  6.1% to 6.3% in the last seven days.  Hospitalizations grew 10% during the last week versus growth of 3% the prior week.

The number of new cases in North Carolina is nearly double the amount a month ago.  However, new cases remain only 23% of the peak week of January 13.  The positive test rate has been above the guideline of 5% for the last five weeks but it is only a fraction of the peak rate of 12.6% in mid January.

North Carolina’s County Alert System was last updated on April 15.  No counties are currently rated red, 20 orange and 48 yellow.  Our state added new categories for moderate (light yellow) and low (green risk of community spread).  30 counties are coded light yellow but only Allegheny County on the Virginia border is listed as green.

How is Wake County doing compared to the other 99 counties?   Our county ranks 25th in the number of new cases and 59th in percent of positive tests over a two-week period.  Wake’s share of North Carolina’s cases has leveled off during the last ten days.  Counties north and east of Wake remain a substantial risk of community spread (code orange).

3.4 million Tar Heels have received their first dose while 2.6 million have their second shots as of April 19. An additional 253,000 have a vaccine requiring a single shot.  The number of new shots decreased from 472,000 to 397,000 doses administered during the last full week (April 12).  36% residents of Wake County have received partial doses and 24% have completed their requirements.

New cases in Wake County dropped 27% from their spike of the previous week.  The number of new cases in our three Zip Codes remained  relatively level during the last week.  In addition, fatalities edged up from 10 to 11 in our county.  There were no new fatalities in our area during the last week.  Over the course of the pandemic, Zip Code 27571 has had proportionately more cases than North Carolina as a whole.  Our other two zip codes have had significantly more cases than Wake County as a whole.  However, deaths across our three areas are lower than either Wake County or North Carolina.

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.

Outlook for the Future

The  April 16 update to the IHME Model from the University of Washington extends their forecast through August 1.  It shows another 1050 deaths in North Carolina in the next three and a half months.  The level for our state to be below the “red zone” for federal guidelines is about 10,500 new cases per week (1500 cases per day).  It is quite possible that the next major reopening for North Carolina will have to await a reduction of new cases to 3500 a week (500 cases daily).

The forecast has become increasingly pessimistic in the last week.  Our state is forecast to fall below the red zone on May 8 as compared to April 24 predicted the prior week.  This model predicts this figure to drop to around 3500 a week by June 15 compared to June 4 in the prior forecast.  IHME forecasts that North Carolina will have less than 10 deaths per day by June 13 vs. June 8 in the prior report.

This slip reflects increasing concern over the impact of spread of variants of COVID-19.  In addition, IHME estimates that mask use in North Carolina peaked on Valentine’s Day at 78% and has decreased to about 70% now.  This figure is forecast to drop to around 55% by July 1 and half of that rate by August 1 as vaccinations continue to increase and restrictions each.

What were the criteria that North Carolina used for previous easing of restrictions from COVID-19?  The lockdown was announced by Executive Order 121 on March 24, 2020.  Subsequent executive orders through December 11 of last year occurred while the daily number of new cases increased dramatically.  Yet, in each case either a major holiday or Election Day would occur in the near future.  Decisions seem much more closely correlated to holidays or the election than the scientific trends.

When is it possible that there might be another major reopening in North Carolina?  I am hopeful that my wife and I can watch the fireworks in person over 4th of July weekend.