Here are the 20 North Carolina counties now in the state’s coronavirus ‘red’ zone
At least 20 of North Carolina’s 100 counties are in the red zone on the state’s COVID-19 risk map — double the number listed last week when health officials announced the new tool.
Red indicates “critical community spread,” according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
The updated map comes as Gov. Roy Cooper issued a dire COVID-19 warning and a set of new mask requirements during a news conference Monday. “We are in danger,” he said.
State health officials released the new county alert system on Nov. 24 to help residents, businesses and public officials in those areas make better-informed decisions about how to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Under the three-tiered system, each county is color-coded according to the level of spread.
Red indicates more than 200 cases per 100,000 people in a two-week span, a positive test rate higher than 10% or high impact on county hospitals.
Here are the 11 newly added “red” counties:
- Alamance County
- Bertie County
- Catawba County
- Guilford County
- Montgomery County
- Perquimans County
- Robeson County
- Surry County
- Swain County
- Vance County
- Yadkin County
Here are the nine counties that were also listed in red last week:
- Alexander County
- Avery County
- Columbus County
- Davie County
- Gaston County
- Hoke County
- Mitchell County
- Wilkes County
- Wilson County
Sampson County was on the cusp last week with a positive rate of 10% and listed in red. It has since dropped down to orange with a 9.5% positivity rate.
Mecklenburg and Wake counties remain in the yellow zone, which indicates significant spread.
Most of the counties listed in red on this week’s map — which includes data from Nov. 6 to Nov. 19 — are in rural areas that didn’t experience the same spike in COVID-19 cases that some of the more densely populated counties had over the summer.
Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, warned earlier in November of rising case numbers in the state’s rural counties, where almost twice as many new COVID-19 cases were reported compared to their urban and suburban counterparts.
“I think they are communities that largely were spared earlier in the year,” Cohen said at a Nov. 12 news conference. “Now the virus has hit these communities.”
This story was originally published November 23, 2020 at 3:04 PM.
