Alamance nears 16,000 COVID-19 cases

This reflects 488 new cases reported and nine new deaths since Feb. 8.

Of the 15,990 total confirmed cases, 15,144 of them have recovered and been released from isolation. As of Monday, 618 remained active cases, 18 people were hospitalized and 228 people had died from the virus, according to the Alamance County Health Department.

Last Week's Numbers: COVID case counts on the rise in Alamance County

Over 20,700 close contacts had been identified, with 20,250 of them having been released from isolation by Monday.

Statewide, 824,352 cases had been confirmed by Monday and 10,501 had died. Additionally, 1,941 people were hospitalized Monday for COVID-19 care.

The county saw record high numbers last 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 after. The weekly average case counts hit a new high of 157 on Jan. 15 as well.

Weekly averages have been declining since. Between Feb. 8 and 14, the Health Department reported rolling weekly averages dipping down into the high 60s, as compared to averages of over 100 reported last week.

As of Monday, the weekly average in Alamance was down to 69 and the highest single-day case count reported in the last week was 100 reported on Feb. 10.

For the first time since Cone Health debuted its acute care capacity forecasting tool, the hospital system does not expect to exceed its 924 acute care bed capacity anytime soon. As of Monday, the tool was not predicting any capacity overages through August.

Since the COVID-19 vaccine became available in late December, the county had administered 14,946 shots by end of day Saturday, Feb. 13. In addition to 10,051 first-round vaccinations, 4,895 second-round doses were administered.

Health care workers, long-term care staff and residents and anyone age 65 or older are currently eligible for vaccination. To schedule your vaccine, call (336) 290-0650. Long wait times are to be expected.

Statewide, 1,129,323 people had received their first dose of the vaccine by Monday and 487,702 had completed the vaccine series.

According to NC DHHS, a total of 25,592 vaccinations have been administered this far, which includes long-term care facility inoculations not conducted by the local Health Department. As of Monday, 10.39 percent of first doses and 4.71 percent of second doses had been administered.

During the week of Feb. 6 – the most recent week for which testing data is available – 4,727 people were tested in Alamance County. During that week 8 percent of tests had positive results, down from 9.1 percent the week prior.

According to the NC DHHS, 9.6 million tests had been completed statewide by Monday, with 8.5 percent of all tests resulting positive.

While research has shown that minority communities are being disproportionately affected by the pandemic, Health Department data shows that white residents (63 percent of cases) between the ages of 20 and 39 (34 percent of cases) are statistically most affected in Alamance.

Alamance is now designated a “orange” county on the state’s County Alert System, meaning there is “significant community spread.” This is a downgrade from the county’s previous “red” designation. Sixty one counties are red, while 33 are orange and six are yellow.

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Outbreaks

Eight nursing homes, 10 residential care facilities and two congregate living settings had ongoing outbreaks as of Friday, according to NC DHHS. These include:

• Alamance Health Care Center: 282 cases, 23 deaths
• Coble Creek: 91 cases, 16 deaths
• Compass Healthcare and Rehab Hawfields: 20 cases, 2 deaths
• Edgewood Place at the Village at Brookwood: 17 cases, 1 death
• Liberty Commons Nursing and Rehab of Alamance: 90 cases, 10 deaths
• Peak Resources – Alamance: 115 cases, 22 deaths
• Twin Lakes Community Memory Care: 9 cases, 0 deaths
• White Oak Manor: 25 cases, 1 death
• Alamance House: 18 cases, 1 deaths
• Blakey Hall Assisted Living: 41 cases, 4 deaths
• Brookdale Burlington: 45 cases, 4 deaths
• Brookdale Burlington Assisted Living: 7 cases, 1 death
• Homeplace of Burlington: 7 cases, 0 deaths
• Mebane Ridge Assisted Living: 5 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: 62 cases, 5 deaths
• Mebane Street, Burlington: 10 cases, 0 deaths
• Alamance County Detention Center: 10 cases, 0 deaths

Three child care settings and one school were also included on the NC DHHS report on clusters in school settings as of Friday. This includes:

• Kidz N Progress: 5 cases
• Like My Own #2: 6 cases
• Hawfields Presbyterian Child Care & Development Center: 6 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.

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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 Monday afternoon.

• Burlington, 27215: 3,726 cases, 54 deaths
• Burlington, 27217: 4,452 cases, 78 deaths
• Elon, 27244: 1,569 cases, 15 deaths
• Gibsonville, 27249: 929 cases, 7 deaths
• Graham, 27253: 2,912 cases, 37 deaths
• Haw River, 27258: 582 cases, 8 deaths
• Liberty, 27298: 668 cases, 8 deaths
• Mebane, 27302: 2,117 cases, 10 deaths
• Snow Camp, 27349: 407 cases, 5 deaths

Neighboring counties

NC DHHS reported the following case counts in neighboring counties as of Monday.

• Guilford: 38,291 cases, 504 deaths
• Orange: 7,422 cases, 90 deaths
• Chatham: 4,009 cases, 72 deaths
• Caswell: 1,877 cases, 19 deaths

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Elizabeth Pattman is the trending topics reporter for the Times-News in Burlington, covering business, COVID-19 and all things trending. Contact Elizabeth (she/her) at epattman@gannett.com. I'm also available on social media @EPattmanTN on Twitter or @burlingtontimesnews on Instagram.

This article originally appeared on Times-News: Alamance nears 16,000 COVID-19 cases