By Maggie Brown, WRAL Multi-Platform Producer
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated a community COVID-19 map Thursday to show 61 of North Carolina’s 100 counties are at high risk. Most counties in eastern and southern North Carolina are at high risk.
The CDC recommends that North Carolinians who are at high risk of severe illness consider wearing a mask in public and take extra precautions, such as getting a booster shot, avoiding poorly ventilated spaces or crowds, and are tested frequently.
Wake up one of the few counties with medium risk
Wake and Johnston counties are not currently seeing as many coronaviruses in the community as other surrounding counties, according to the CDC’s analysis of coronavirus data.
This week, Wake County averaged about 308 cases of the coronavirus for every 100,000 residents. Health leaders say that number likely isn’t the full picture because of many people who test positive for the virus at home and don’t report the data to the state.
About 8 people per 100,000 in Wake County are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, keeping Wake County in the “moderate” risk category as defined by the CDC.
Wake County’s positivity rate, however, has been on a steady incline since May. As of Thursday, North Carolina’s positive rate was 19 percent, meaning that more than 1 in 6 coronavirus tests done in North Carolina come back positive. This number does not include home tests.
About 95 percent of the population in Wake County has received some type of coronavirus vaccination. Not everyone is fully vaccinated, and even fewer people have received booster shots.
Do low vaccination rates correlate with high community COVID rates?
The counties with the lowest percentage of vaccinated population are Rutherford, Robeson, Montgomery, Hoke, Tyrrell, Polk and Harnett.
Harnett County — about 40 miles from Wake County — has a high vaccination rate among those 65 and older, but a relatively lower vaccination rate among those under 65.
Only 43 percent of Harnett County’s population is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, compared to 95 percent in Wake. According to the CDC, fully vaccinated is defined as completing two doses of a Moderna or Pfizer two-dose vaccine or one Johnson & Johnson vaccine. For people who are severely immunocompromised, that definition changes, the CDC says.
New cases of COVID-19 by district
The curves below, showing a 7-day moving average of reported new cases in each county, use data collected by state health officials from the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. Counties are sorted by the highest total number of laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19, and the top 20 counties are shown by default. The vertical axes are scaled by default based on the largest number of new cases. Select the variable axis setting to scale each county’s cases separately to see their respective spikes. Enter a county below to highlight it for comparison. NOTE: As of September 25, Johns Hopkins data began to include cases identified by antigen testing reported by DHHS. Adding those cases seems like a sharp jump in some counties.
Source: Johns Hopkins CSSE Graphics: Tyler Dukes, WRAL // Get the data
For every 100,000 people in Harnett County, the CDC estimates that nearly 300 people tested positive for the coronavirus this week. The county’s rate of positive tests is higher than the state — more than 26 percent of people who test in the county are positive for the coronavirus, according to CDC data.
On the other hand, Rutherford County has the lowest vaccination rate but is not in the CDC’s high-risk category. The county is one of 36 at medium risk for community spread. According to CDC data, it falls into that category because new hospitalizations related to the coronavirus fall below 10 per 100,000 people.
However, roughly the same number of people per capita have tested positive for COVID-19 in Rutherford County as in Harnett County.
Will people do the latest booster shots?
The US announced on Thursday that coronavirus vaccines specific to the latest omicron variants – BA.4 and BA.5 – will be available to the public from September.
Everyone was eligible for a booster shot, but many people didn’t take up the opportunity. A second booster dose is recommended for Americans over age 50 and those over age 12 with certain immune deficiencies.
But there is little hope in the data that people are interested in getting another booster shot. Only 28 percent of North Carolinians 18 and older were fully vaccinated and also received a first booster shot, CDC data show.
Reported hospitalizations with COVID-19 in NC
Experts worry about another drop in cases as new highly contagious variants of omicron emerge.
The number of North Carolinians testing positive for COVID-19 and going to the hospital increased 17 percent this week compared to last week, according to data released by the state on Wednesday.
North Carolina is experiencing levels of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations not seen since the end of the omicron peak in February, data show.
A total of 1,290 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the week ending July 24, the most North Carolina has seen since the week ending February 19.
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