George By Shaw
Executive Summary
Further relaxation of restrictions were announced this afternoon with the next review schedule several days before June 1. The metrics used to track COVID-19 are generally improving but not rapidly. The number of hospitalizations rose in the last week. North Carolina continues to have better ratings than about three quarters of the other states. However, the forecast for new cases and deaths over the next several months has become more pessimistic.
Executive Order No. 209
Governor Cooper announced a significant relaxation of restrictions today. The capacity limits for mass gatherings increased. Indoor events increase from 50 to 100; outdoor activities grow from 100 to 200. Masks are still required indoors but no longer mandated outdoors. Masks are still strongly recommended outdoors in crowded areas and higher risk settings where social distancing is difficult. This order takes effect on Friday, April 30 and is set to expire on June 1. The state anticipates lifting more restrictions at that time if more Tar Heels get vaccinated and the trends in cases and other key indicators continue to improve.
Key COVID-19 Data
North Carolina’s ratings remain better than most of the states. It went from the 15th to the 14th 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 moved up from the 27th highest rate of testing to the 26th.
Data for the last seven days all improved in our state. New tests in North Carolina are down 9% vs. being up 1% the prior week. The number of new cases are down 3% (vs. -4%) during the prior week. Because around 500 cases reported on April 25 occurred earlier in the month, the real rate of decrease last week was 7%. The percentage of positive tests increased slightly from 5.4% to 5.8% in the last seven days. Hospitalizations were reduced 5% during the last week versus growth of 10% the prior week.
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).
3.6 million Tar Heels have received their first dose while 2.8 million have their second shots as of April 19. An additional 333,000 have a vaccine requiring a single shot. The number of new shots decreased from 402,000 to 285,000 doses administered during the last full week (April 19). 38% residents of Wake County have received partial doses and 30% have completed their requirements.
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New cases in Wake County increased 8% last week compared to a 27% decline for the prior seven day period. The number of new cases in our three Zip Codes all declined significantly during the last week. In addition, fatalities decreased from 11 to 7 in our county. The last reported fatality from the virus in our area was on March 26 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.
| North | Wake | Zip | Zip | Zip | ||
| Data as of 4/28/2021 | Carolina | County | 27587 | 27571 | 27596 | |
| Total Cases | 966524 | 85652 | 6490 | 733 | 1696 | |
| Total Deaths | 12619 | 720 | 48 | 1 | 5 | |
| Percent Deaths | 1.3% | 0.8% | 0.7% | 0.1% | 0.3% | |
| Cases (last 7 days) | 13007 | 1253 | 82 | 11 | 24 | |
| Increase over prior 7 days | -4.7% | 8.0% | -33.9% | -21.4% | -11.1% | |
| Deaths (last 7 days) | 139 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Cases/100 Population | 9.22 | 7.83 | 8.72 | 9.92 | 9.09 | |
| Frequency (1 in x people) | 10.9 | 12.8 | 11.5 | 10.1 | 11.0 | |
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 | 7-Apr | 14-Apr | 21-Apr | 28-Apr | vs. Guideline |
| New Cases | 10678 | 13974 | 13447 | 13007 | 124% |
| Positive Test Rate | 4.7% | 5.7% | 5.8% | 0.8% | |
| Deaths | 100 | 113 | 155 | 139 | 66% |
| Wake County | |||||
| New Cases | 1138 | 1591 | 1160 | 1253 | 115% |
| Deaths | 8 | 10 | 11 | 7 | 32% |
| Zip 27587 | |||||
| New Cases | 84 | 123 | 124 | 82 | 106% |
| Deaths | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
Outlook for the Future
The April 27 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 16. 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).
The forecast has become increasingly pessimistic for new cases in the last week. Our state is forecast to fall below the red zone on May 26 as compared to May 8 predicted the prior week. This model predicts this figure to drop to around 3500 a week by June 25 compared to June 15 in the prior forecast. IHME forecasts that North Carolina will have less than 10 deaths per day by June 6 vs. June 13 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 56% by July 1 and about 60% of that rate by August 1 as vaccinations continue to increase and restrictions ease.
