COVID-19 County Alert System will be updated every other week.
North Carolina is experiencing record high numbers of COVID-19 cases reported each day, of people being hospitalized with COVID-19 and people in the intensive care unit as well as the percent of tests that are positive, indicating very high levels of viral spread across the state. The COVID-19 County Alert System gives individuals, businesses and community organizations, and public officials a tool to understand how their county is faring and to make decisions about actions to take 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
Because no one metric provides a complete picture, the COVID-19 County Alert System uses a combination of three metrics: case rate, the percent of tests that are positive, and hospital impact within the county.
There are critical actions we can all take to slow the spread of COVID-19, regardless of whether your county is currently in the yellow, orange or red tier. Individuals, businesses, community organizations, and public officials all have a responsibility to take these recommended actions, in addition to following the requirements in existing Executive Orders and NCDHHS guidance and the Secretarial Directive. Red and orange counties need to do even more to slow the spread of COVID-19 in their communities; it is strongly recommended these counties go further and build upon current requirements as outlined in the COVID-19 County Alert System.
Data will be updated with the COVID-19 County Alert System.
