By George Shaw
Summary
Results are improving dramatically in North Carolina with acceleration of the declines in new cases, deaths and hospitalizations. The removal of most restrictions on masks and social distancing has eased requirements. Meanwhile the rate of vaccinations has slowed significantly. The forecast is that the number of new cases will be reduced to around 500 daily across North Carolina by early July.
Change in CDC Guidance
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) removed most restrictions on wearing masks and for social distancing on May 14. Executive Order 215 mirrored those changes. Fully vaccinated individuals can safely do most activities without wearing a mask or the need to social distance from others. Masks will still be required in child care, schools and camps as most children have not been vaccinated. All will still be required to wear a mask in settings such as public transportation, many health care situations, as well as certain congregate settings such as correctional facilities and homeless shelters. However, local governments and businesses may require masks and social distancing at their own discretion.
Key COVID-19 Data
North Carolina’s ratings remain better than most of the states. It remained the 14th lowest among the 50 states for the number of cases during the last week as well as the 13th lowest state in deaths per person. It also kept its ranking as 26th in terms of the most number of tests.
Data for the last seven days improved in our state against all of the key metrics. New tests in North Carolina are down 13% vs. 9% the prior week. The number of new cases is down 14% (same as the prior week) during the prior seven-day period. The percentage of positive tests decreased significantly from 4.7% to 4.4% in the last week. Hospitalizations remained at 820, the same as a week ago.
North Carolina’s County Alert System was last updated on May 13 measuring the two weeks up to May 8. No counties are currently rated red, 19 orange and 56 yellow. 24 counties are coded light yellow. Henderson County is listed as green. This represents significant improvement from the scores from April 29 when there were 30 orange and 14 light yellow listings.
How is Wake County doing compared to the other 99 counties? Our county’s ranking has improved slightly during the past two weeks. It currently ranks 37th lowest in the number of new cases (vs. 24th in the prior period). It is also the 54th highest in percent of positive tests over a two-week period (vs. 55th during the prior two week period). Wake’s share of North Carolina’s cases has slowly declined since May 10.
4.1 million Tar Heels have received their first dose while 3.6 million have their second shots as of April 19. An additional 287 thousand have a vaccine requiring a single shot. The number of new shots decreased from 189,000 to 152,000 doses administered during the last full week (May 10). 40% residents of Wake County have received partial doses and 36% have completed their requirements.
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New cases in Wake County declined 37% last week compared to a 4% increase for the prior seven-day period. This is the lowest weekly total since at least October 2020. The number of new cases in Zip Codes 27587 declined nearly 24% during the last week while those in 27571 increased 25% and 27596 declined 31%. The figure for the last seven days is the lowest in Zip 27587 since the week of October 21, 2020.
There were two reported deaths from the virus in Wake County during the last week. One of these was in Zip 27587 and the other in Zip 27596. Over the course of the pandemic, Zip Code 27571 has had proportionately more cases than North Carolina as a whole. However, deaths across our three areas are proportionately lower than either Wake County or North Carolina.
| North | Wake | Zip | Zip | Zip | ||
| Data as of 5/19/2021 | Carolina | County | 27587 | 27571 | 27596 | |
| Total Cases | 995026 | 87965 | 6680 | 759 | 1787 | |
| Total Deaths | 20850 | 723 | 49 | 1 | 6 | |
| Percent Deaths | 2.1% | 0.8% | 0.7% | 0.1% | 0.3% | |
| Cases (last 7 days) | 7595 | 565 | 52 | 10 | 25 | |
| Increase over prior 7 days | -21.5% | -36.7% | -23.5% | 25.0% | -30.6% | |
| Deaths (last 7 days) | 8020 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| Cases/100 Population | 9.49 | 8.04 | 8.98 | 10.27 | 9.58 | |
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 | 21-Apr | 28-Apr | 5-May | 12-May | vs. Guideline | Guideline |
| New Cases | 13007 | 11232 | 9675 | 7595 | 72% | 10500 |
| Positive Test Rate | 5.3% | 4.9% | 4.7% | 5.1% | ||
| Deaths | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 210 |
| Wake County | ||||||
| New Cases | 1253 | 855 | 893 | 565 | 52% | 1085 |
| Deaths | 7 | 2 | -1 | 2 | 9% | 21.7 |
| Zip 27587 | ||||||
| New Cases | 82 | 70 | 68 | 52 | 68% | 77 |
| Deaths | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 65% | 1.54 |
Outlook for the Future
The May 13 update to the IHME Model from the University of Washington is less positive about the number of new cases and deaths than the last one from April 27. The level for our state to be below the “red zone” for federal guidelines is about 10,500 new cases per week (1,500 cases per day).
Our state is forecast to fall below the red zone on June 7 as compared to June 3 predicted the prior week. This model predicts this figure to drop to around 3,500 a week by July 4 compared to July 2 in the prior forecast. IHME forecasts that North Carolina will have less than 10 deaths per day by June 28 vs. June 30 in the prior report.
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