Governor Roy Cooper will hold a coronavirus briefing today at 3 p.m., after today’s N.C. Dept. of Health and Human Services dashboard reported the State’s highest single-day new-case total ever at 2,532, and the White House Coronavirus Task Force put North Carolina back in the COVID-19 risk “red zone” for its rising number of cases this month.
North Carolina was last in the red zone in early September, during a brief case spike, but it has been in the orange zone since then.
There are currently 26 states in the red zone, which means that they have experienced 100 new cases daily per 100,000 residents during the past week.
In rapid-fire online research, we learned that the orange zone is defined as 10 to 25 new cases daily per 100,000 residents and that there are two other zones below the orange zone: yellow (one to nine new cases per 100,000) and green (fewer than one case per 100,000). (We will sort this out further after the Governor’s press conference.)
Total daily cases in North Carolina during the past seven days are reportedly 8 percent higher than the previous seven days—reaching peaks that were last seen in July.
The Beacon has calculated case increases daily in North Carolina since early May and can vouch for today’s total being the State’s highest, with the exception of two days when special circumstances bumped up the totals (Aug. 29 and Sept. 25).
You may live-stream the Governor’s briefing at: https://www.unctv.org/watch/live-stream/eoc/?utm_source=leaderboard&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=EMWCopper; or watch it on UNC-TV, channel 3.
Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 10/15/20
The Southern Shores Beacon 