By George Shaw
Summary
Results continue to improve in North Carolina with acceleration of the declines in new cases, deaths and hospitalizations. North Carolina has had one of the most successful records balancing COVID deaths and job losses according to a report from Hamilton Place Strategies. However, the forecast through August 1 for new cases and deaths continues to be more pessimistic. There continues to be a strong probability of another round of relaxation of restrictions by June 1. Removal of remaining constraints may be delayed until just before the 4th of July weekend.
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.
Hamilton Place Strategies published a report on April 18 that measured the medical impact by estimating the number of excess deaths on a per capita basis from March 2020 to March 2021. They then contrasted that metric with the job losses over the same time frame adjusted for the size of the population.
How does the Tar Heel State rank when you compare the medical against the economic impact of the virus? Very well – only Utah had more favorable ratings on both measures than North Carolina did. Only four other states performed significantly better than the national average on both measures – Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska and West Virginia.
Data for the last seven days all improved in our state. New tests in North Carolina are down 15% vs. -4% the prior week. The number of new cases is down 14% (vs. -3%) during the prior week. The percentage of positive tests increased slightly from 5.4% to 5.8% in the last seven days. Hospitalizations were reduced 11% during the last week versus a drop of 1% the prior week.
North Carolina’s County Alert System was last updated on April 29. No counties are currently rated red, 30 orange and 56 yellow. 14 counties are coded light yellow. Allegheny County on the Virginia border is not listed as green. This represents significant deterioration from the scores from April 15 when there were 20 orange and 30 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 24th in the number of new cases and 55th 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).
3.9 million Tar Heels have received their first dose while 3.2 million have their second shots as of April 19. An additional 228,000 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). 39% residents of Wake County have received partial doses and 32% have completed their requirements.
| Testing | 33829 | 35421 | 35025 | 31748 | Down Significantly | Level or down | ||||
| New Cases | 1761 | 1973 | 1904 | 1731 | Down Significantly | Level or down | ||||
| % Positive Cases | 5.21% | 5.57% | 5.44% | 5.45% | Above 5% | 5% or less | ||||
| Hospitalizations | 990 | 1062 | 1120 | 1081 | Down | Level or down | ||||
| Source: covid19.ncdhhs.gov/dashboard | ||||||||||
| Notes: | ||||||||||
| o It usually takes 3-4 days for complete data to be reported. | ||||||||||
| o Color Coding from NC County Alert System | ||||||||||
| Risk of Community Spread | Color | Cases | % Positive | |||||||
| Critical | Red | > 200 | >10% | |||||||
| Substantial | Orange | 100 to 200 | 8-10% | |||||||
| Significant | Yellow | 20 to 100 | 5-7.9% | |||||||
| Moderate | Lt Yel | 10 to 20 | 3-4.9% | |||||||
| Low | Green | <10 | <3% | |||||||
| Note: cases are per 100,000 population | ||||||||||
|
New cases in Wake County declined 32% last week compared to an 8% increase 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 7 to 2 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. Zip Code 27571 passed 10% of the population during the pandemic. However, deaths across our three areas are lower than either Wake County or North Carolina.
| North | Wake | Zip | Zip | Zip | ||
| Data as of 5/5/2021 | Carolina | County | 27587 | 27571 | 27596 | |
| Total Cases | 977756 | 86507 | 6560 | 741 | 1726 | |
| Total Deaths | 12721 | 722 | 48 | 1 | 5 | |
| Percent Deaths | 1.3% | 0.8% | 0.7% | 0.1% | 0.3% | |
| Cases (last 7 days) | 11232 | 855 | 70 | 8 | 30 | |
| Increase over prior 7 days | -13.6% | -31.8% | -14.6% | -27.3% | 25.0% | |
| Deaths (last 7 days) | 102 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Cases/100 Population | 9.32 | 7.90 | 8.82 | 10.03 | 9.25 | |
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 | 14-Apr | 21-Apr | 28-Apr | 5-May | vs. Guideline | Guideline |
| New Cases | 13974 | 13447 | 13007 | 11232 | 107% | 10500 |
| Positive Test Rate | 5.7% | 5.4% | 5.4% | 5.5% | ||
| Deaths | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 210 |
| Wake County | ||||||
| New Cases | 1591 | 1160 | 1253 | 855 | 79% | 1085 |
| Deaths | 10 | 11 | 7 | 2 | 9% | 21.7 |
| Zip 27587 | ||||||
| New Cases | 123 | 124 | 82 | 70 | 91% | 77 |
| Deaths | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 1.54 |
Outlook for the Future
The April 30 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).
The forecast is slightly more pessimistic for new cases than the prior one. Our state is forecast to fall below the red zone on May 31 as compared to May 26 predicted the prior week. This model predicts this figure to drop to around 3,500 a week by June 27 compared to June 25 in the prior forecast. IHME forecasts that North Carolina will have less than 10 deaths per day by June 10 vs. June 6 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%. The figure was 70% a week ago; it has decreased to about 67% now. This figure is forecast to drop to around 54% by July 1 (it was 56% a week ago) and 31% of that rate by August 1 as vaccinations continue to increase and restrictions ease.
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