By George Shaw
Summary
The COVID-19 situation in our state continued to improve steadily in the last month. However, the number of new cases rose last week for Wake County as well as the zip codes for Wake Forest and Youngsville.
The most recent forecast from the University of Washington for the virus in North Carolina predicts that deaths will bottom out in late November but begin to slowly rise through the remainder of 2021.
North Carolina
North Carolina’s ratings remain better than most states. The Tar Heel State had the 22nd lowest rate for new cases. It was the 21st two weeks ago. It also remained the 14th lowest for de aths on a per capita basis. It is also the 28th best rate for tests among the states. All of the key metrics improved last week. The number of tests declined 24% in the last seven days, compared to a 8% reduction the prior week. The 307,000 tests during the week ending today were the lowest level in the last two months.
New cases declined 35% in the last week; they were reduced 22% the prior week. The 22,735 new cases during the last seven days were the lowest level since early August.
Hospitalizations decreased by 12% during the last week to 2277, the lowest level since August 3. And deaths were down 23% to 305, the lowest level since the week of September 1.
Wake County, Wake Forest, Rolesville and Youngsville
In contrast to the continuing improvement at the state level, new cases rose in the last week in Wake County as well as two of the local zip codes.
New cases rose 8% in Wake County, 31% in zip code 27587 and 75% in zip code 27596 during the last seven days. They decreased 5% in zip code 27571.
Wake County had 12 deaths in the last week, the smallest figure since the week of September 8. There were two more deaths in zip 27587 during the last two weeks. The Rolesville zip code continues to report only a single death since the start of the pandemic roughly eighteen months ago.
69% of the population in Wake County have received one shot; 65% have completed their vaccinations. These percentages are higher than the corresponding ones for the entire state. 58% of Tar Heels have received a single shot; 54% have completed the requirement. Weekly vaccinations in North Carolina continued their decline since the week of August 23.
Hospitalizations, Outbreaks and Forecast
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New hospitalizations decreased 15% in the last week in the Capital Region, an area of five counties centered on Wake.This represents a 53% reduction since the peak during late August. 27% of hospitalized patients in the Tar Heel State and the Capital Region were in Intensive Care Units.
The North Carolina forecast for the virus from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) was updated on September 29. The total number of deaths in our state is currently 17.330. IMHE expects this number to increase to 20.045 nearly 20,300 by the end of December. This is a reduction of about 250 deaths from their prior forecast from September 23. Deaths are forecasted to decline through November 23 and slowly rise again as colder weather arrives and people are indoors for a greater portion of the day. This is a slip of four days from the previous outlook.
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