North Carolina is experiencing high levels of community transmission of COVID-19 statewide, but the virus is impacting some counties particularly hard.
The NC Department of Health and Human Services has established a COVID-19 County Alert System to give individuals, businesses, community organizations, and public officials another tool to understand how their county is faring and to make decisions about actions to slow the spread of the virus.
The COVID-19 County Alert System uses metrics informed by the White House Coronavirus Task Force and North Carolina’s key metrics to categorize counties into three tiers:
- Yellow: Significant Community Spread
- Orange: Substantial Community Spread
- Red: Critical Community Spread
To be assigned to the red or orange tier, a county must meet the threshold for case rate for that tier AND the threshold for either percent positive OR hospital impact.
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Case Rate: The number of new cases in 14 days per 100,000 people
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Percent Positive: The percent of tests that are positive over 14 days
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Hospital Impact: A composite score based on the impact that COVID-19 has had on hospitals including percent of COVID-19 hospitalizations, COVID-19 related visits to the Emergency Department, staffed open hospital beds, and critical staffing shortages over 14 days
Cumberland County is currently ORANGE with a 14-day average of 259.9 cases per 100,000 and 8.7% positive cases.
