By Outer Banks Voice on April 6, 2021
On the day before all North Carolina residents age 16 and older become eligible for a COVID vaccination, Governor Roy Cooper laid out a generally positive view of the status of the outbreak in the state. The key COVID metrics “have remained stable over the last month,” he said at an April 6 press briefing, while cautioning that, “we need to be careful and responsible” in mitigating the spread of the virus.
In her review of the four key COVID metrics, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) Secretary Mandy Cohen noted that the number of cases of COVID in the state “have levelled,” something she saw as good news given that some other states are seeing notable increases in cases.
On April 6, NCDHHS reported 870 cases of COVID-19, which appears to be the fewest cases in a single day since early October.
Aside from reminding people that starting on April 7 all North Carolina residents 16 and up can sign up for vaccinations, Cooper also reviewed the vaccination numbers to date with 38% of state residents partially inoculated, another 26% fully inoculated and 65% of those in the highest risk group, age 65 and older, also fully vaccinated.
The NCDHHS’s County Alert System has been updated as of March 27 and there are no longer any North Carolina counties in the red zone, which stands for critical community spread of the virus. In this update, Dare County and Currituck County are among the 21 counties in the state in the orange category – meaning substantial community spread of the virus. That is actually a step in the wrong direction from the yellow status (significant community spread) they were both assigned in the last update on March 18.
For its part, Hyde County remains in the yellow category it occupied after the mid-March update.
Note: Every morning, the NC Department of Health and Human Services posts updates the number of reported cases of coronavirus. That number reflects positive results from all tests, including the NC State Laboratory of Public Health and all hospital and commercial labs. There may be other reports, from the media and elsewhere, that will include different numbers during a given day, but this is an effective way of tracking numbers from the same source on a day-to-day basis.
SOURCE: NC DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
Link to COVID-19 North Carolina Dashboard