COVID numbers continue to decline

By George Shaw

The trends remain positive as all key metrics are declining significantly.  However, they remain well above the federal guidelines.  Wake continues to catch up to other counties in the rate of vaccination but North Carolina as a whole lags the national average.  Although Governor Cooper announced some relaxation in the stay-at-home guidelines last week, these were modest.  A major reopening of the state is not likely for another month or two.

Key COVID-19 Data

North Carolina’s ratings remain better than most of the states.   It remained the 15th lowest among the 50 states for the number of cases as well as the 13th lowest state in deaths per capita. And it remains the 28th highest in the rate of testing.

Although trends are increasingly encouraging for tests, cases and hospitalizations, the numbers remain higher than the levels in state and federal guidelines. Governor Cooper relaxed North Carolina’s stay-at-home order on February 24 increasing capacity of seating at bars and stadiums.  The revision also reverted the number for indoor events from 10 to 25.  The guideline for outdoor events stays at 50.

New tests in North Carolina are down 5% while the number of new cases reduced 12% during the prior week.  The percentage of positive tests has declined from a peak in mid-January to a level last achieved on October 23.  Hospitalizations peaked on January 12 and have since decreased by 67%.

New cases and deaths in Wake County were the lowest total since late October.  The number of new cases in Zip Code 27587 were also the lowest total since mid November.  The first new death was reported for Zip Code 27587 in two weeks on February 28.  The reported total of fatalities in Zip Code 27596 increased from three to five on March 2.

Vaccinations
How does Wake County compare to other counties in terms of vaccinations?  There are 12 counties in North Carolina with populations greater than 200,000.  14% of our county’s residents had received their first vaccine shot as of yesterday; 7.8% had also received their second shot.  Durham County was the only one of the 11 other large counties with higher vaccination rates on both scores.  Forsythe and Buncombe exceeded Wake on the percentage of second shots.  Vaccination rates in the large counties around Charlotte were 10-12% for the first shot and 6-7% for the second one.

The picture is somewhat different for counties that border Wake.  Chatham County has the best track record followed by Orange and Durham.  Counties to the east of Wake lag.

Federal Guidelines

The federal Coronavirus Task Force has developed stoplight charts for the states on three metrics.  North Carolina has rated “red” for all categories for the last two months.   Areas exceeding the federal guidelines are shown red.  The number of new cases was 192% of the federal guideline for North Carolina a week ago.  Now it is 152%.  There were drops of around 15 points each for Wake County and Zip 27587.  The most encouraging news is the reduction in the positive test rate for our state from 6.6% last week to 5.7% this week.

Outlook for the Future

The relaxation of some measures last week were modest.  The key question is when North Carolina may make a significant change in policy.  Examples would include raising the guideline from 25 for indoor gatherings to 50 or 100 as well as similar changes from 50 for outdoor events to 100 or 200.  Although the number of vaccinations is increasing in our state, there remains a danger of a renewed spike from variants of COVID-19 in the March to May timeframe.

The IMHE model from the University of Washington weighs the impact of vaccinations, new virus variants, changes in stay at home policy as well as the effectiveness of each state’s social distancing.  The number of new cases is forecast to decline to around 10,000 per week for North Carolina within 30 days, a level that would place our state below the “red zone” for federal guidelines.  This model predicts this figure to drop to around 3500 by May 24.

Similarly, the benchmark of 5% for positive tests is likely to be achieved around March 7, a week ahead of what was shown last week.  The key 3% figure is likely to be met within 30 days and 2% by late April.

All this suggests a significant relaxation in North Carolina’s stay-at-home order is unlikely before mid-April or later.

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