Alamance County’s COVID-19 overall case count topped 13,500 on Tuesday, and the death toll is nearing 200 as the county continues to navigate through rising case counts and the vaccine rollout.
Of the 13,566 confirmed cases, 12,004 of them have recovered and been released from isolation. As of Tuesday, 1,364 remained active cases, 64 people were hospitalized and 198 people had died from the virus, according to the Alamance County Health Department.
Over 19,000 close contacts had been identified, with most of them having been released from isolation by Tuesday.
Statewide, 684,497 cases had been confirmed by Tuesday and 8,139 had died. Nearly 4,000 people were hospitalized for COVID-19 care.
The county has seen record high numbers this month, with the highest daily new case count reaching 256 on Jan. 9 and daily new case counts staying above 100 for many of the days since. The weekly average case counts hit a new high of 157 on Jan. 15 as well.
The state saw the same record high set on Jan. 9 with 11,581 cases reported that day across all 100 counties.
At this rate, Cone Health expects to exceed its capacity of 924 acute care beds in the region by Feb. 5.
In the first four weeks since the COVID-19 vaccine became available, the county had vaccinated 4,006 people by end of day Tuesday. About 200 people had been vaccinated each day in the last week, according to the Health Department.
Health care workers, long-term care staff and residents and anyone age 65 or older are currently eligible for vaccination under the state guidelines, though Alamance County is currently restricting their vaccines to anyone age 75 or older as well as healthcare workers and long-term care individuals as doses remain hard to come by.
Statewide, 344,456 people had received their first dose of the vaccine by Tuesday and 60,073 had completed the vaccine series.
Testing is also increasing this month, with 6,213 people tested during the week of Jan. 9 – the most recent week for which testing data is available. During that week 14.9 percent of tests had positive results.
According to the NC DHHS, 8.1 million tests had been completed by Tuesday, with 8.4 of those resulting positive.
While research has shown that minority communities are being disproportionately affected by the pandemic, Health Department data shows that white residents (65 percent of cases) between the ages of 20 and 39 (33 percent of cases) are statistically most affected in Alamance.
Alamance is still designated a “red” county on the state’s County Alert System, meaning there is “critical community spread.” Eighty three other counties are also red, while 12 are orange and 4 are yellow.
Outbreaks
Eight nursing homes, nine residential care facilities and one congregate living setting had ongoing outbreaks as of Tuesday, according to NC DHHS. These include:
- Alamance Health Care Center: 240 cases, 16 deaths
- Coble Creek: 89 cases, 16 deaths
- Compass Healthcare and Rehab Hawfields: 15 cases, 0 deaths
- Edgewood Place at the Village at Brookwood: 16 cases, 1 death
- Liberty Commons Nursing and Rehab of Alamance: 90 cases, 9 deaths
- Peak Resources – Alamance: 113 cases, 22 deaths
- Twin Lakes Community Memory Care: 9 cases, 0 deaths
- White Oak Manor: 23 cases, 1 death
- Alamance House: 7 cases, 0 deaths
- Blakely Hall Assisted Living: 41 cases, 4 deaths
- Brookdale Burlington: 44 cases, 3 deaths
- Homeplace of Burlington: 4 cases, 0 deaths
- Ralph Scott – Mebane: 6 cases, 0 deaths
- Springview – Brock Building: 3 cases, 0 deaths
- Springview – Crouse Building: 2 cases, 0 deaths
- Springview – Ross Building: 11 cases, 0 deaths
- The Oaks of Alamance: 60 cases, 2 deaths
- Mebane Street, Burlington: 10 cases, 0 deaths
Three child care centers and five schools were also included on the NC DHHS report on clusters in school settings as of Tuesday. These include:
- Childcare Network #297: 5 cases
- Little Thinkers: 6 cases
- The Kitty Hupman Weekday School: 8 cases
- South Graham Elementary: 9 cases
- Highland Elementary: 5 cases
- E.M. Yoder Elementary: 6 cases
- Positive Attitude Youth Center: 8 cases
- Southern Alamance High School: 6 cases
Outbreak data is updated every Tuesday and Friday afternoon and is viewable at https://files.nc.gov/covid/documents/dashboard/Weekly-COVID19-Ongoing-Outbreaks.pdf.
Alamance County cases by zip code
A map by the NCDHSS shows the number of cases and deaths within each North Carolina ZIP code. The following ZIP codes are tracked by the Alamance County Health Department. However, the totals for the Alamance County ZIP codes add up to more than what the county reports because in some cases ZIP codes overlap county lines. These numbers reflect the confirmed case count by Tuesday.
- Burlington, 27215: 3,152 cases, 38 deaths
- Burlington, 27217: 3,914 cases, 71 deaths
- Elon, 27244: 1,214 cases, 13 deaths
- Gibsonville, 27249: 767 cases, 5 deaths
- Graham, 27253: 2,493 cases, 32 deaths
- Haw River, 27258: 481 cases, 6 deaths
- Liberty, 27298: 542 cases, 4 deaths
- Mebane, 27302: 1,752 cases, 5 deaths
- Snow Camp, 27349: 324 cases, 5 deaths
Neighboring counties
NC DHHS reported the following case counts in neighboring counties as of Tuesday.
- Guilford: 31,391 cases, 360 deaths
- Orange: 6,117 cases, 69 deaths
- Chatham: 3,402 cases, 68 deaths
- Caswell: 1,543 cases, 10 deaths
This article originally appeared on Times-News: 13,566 sick, 198 dead, 4,006 vaccinated in Alamance's battle against COVID-19
