New COVID-19 case counts are continuing to decline in Alamance County, reaching a rolling weekly average of 49 cases per day as of Monday. The county has not seen weekly averages this low since early November before the holiday spikes.
As of Monday, the county reported 15,990 total cases and 235 deaths. This reflects 349 new cases reported and seven new deaths in the last week.
Of the total confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic, 15,607 of them have recovered and been released from isolation. As of Monday, 497 remained active cases and 21 people were hospitalized, according to the Alamance County Health Department.
Last Week's Numbers: Alamance nears 16,000 COVID-19 cases
Nearly 21,000 close contacts had been identified, with 20,480 of them having been released from isolation by Monday.
Statewide, 844,770 cases had been confirmed by Monday and 10,934 had died. Additionally, 1,567 people were hospitalized Monday for COVID-19 care.
The county saw record-high numbers last month in the wake of holiday celebrations, 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. In the last week, the Health Department reported rolling weekly averages dipping down from the high 60s to the high 40s, as compared to averages of more than 100 reported earlier this month.
As of Monday, the weekly average in Alamance was down to 49 and the highest single-day case count reported in the last week was 77 reported on Feb. 17.
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 last week, the tool was not predicting any capacity overages through August.
By Monday, the hospital system had changed its website, now sharing the number of COVID patients hospitalized across all Cone Health facilities in the region. There were 89 patients as of Monday morning.
Nearly two months after the COVID-19 vaccine became available in late December, the county had administered more than 18,000 shots by end of day Friday. In addition to 11,455 first-round vaccinations, 6,554 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 find out when you will be eligible and sign up for notifications, visit the Find My Vaccine Group tool at https://findmygroup.nc.gov/. If you are eligible now, visit https://myspot.nc.gov/ to find out where you can be vaccinated.
Statewide, 1,226,758 people had received their first dose of the vaccine by Monday and 676,572 had completed the vaccine series.
During the week of Feb. 13 – the most recent week for which testing data is available – 3,943 people were tested in Alamance County. During that week 8.7 percent of tests had positive results, up slightly from 8 percent the week prior.
According to the NC DHHS, 9.9 million tests had been completed statewide by Monday, 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 (63 percent of cases) between the ages of 20 and 39 (34 percent of cases) are statistically most affected in Alamance.
Alamance is designated an “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.
Outbreaks
Eight nursing homes, eight residential care facilities and two congregate living settings had ongoing outbreaks as of Friday, according to NC DHHS. These include:
- Alamance Health Care Center: 286 cases, 23 deaths
- Coble Creek: 91 cases, 16 deaths
- Compass Healthcare and Rehab Hawfields: 21 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
- Blakely 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 – 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:
- Kids N Progress: 8 cases
- Like My Own #2: 8 cases
- Hawfields Presbyterian Child Care & Development Center: 9 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 Monday.
- Burlington, 27215: 3,809 cases, 57 deaths
- Burlington, 27217: 4,541 cases, 81 deaths
- Elon, 27244: 1,644 cases, 17 deaths
- Gibsonville, 27249: 955 cases, 7 deaths
- Graham, 27253: 2,967 cases, 39 deaths
- Haw River, 27258: 594 cases, 8 deaths
- Liberty, 27298: 685 cases, 8 deaths
- Mebane, 27302: 2,171 cases, 11 deaths
- Snow Camp, 27349: 413 cases, 5 deaths
Neighboring counties
NC DHHS reported the following case counts in neighboring counties as of Monday morning.
- Guilford: 39,089 cases, 537 deaths
- Orange: 7,586 cases, 93 deaths
- Chatham: 4,076 cases, 75 deaths
- Caswell: 1,919 cases, 21 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: New COVID-19 case counts on the decline in Alamance
