Gov. Cooper unveils COVID-19 county alert system, urges counties to curb spread

RALEIGH, NC (WWAY) — Gov. Roy Cooper on Tuesday warned North Carolinians that the unfettered spread of the novel coronavirus could result in snapping back statewide restrictions on businesses, but for now, endorsed the idea of a more regional approach.

That included the debut of a color-coded map alerting all 100 counties in the state of their current COVID-19 predicament.

The map will be updated every four weeks.

“By pinpointing counties with high virus transmission and asking everyone in those counties to work with us and do more right now to slow the spread of the virus, we can succeed,” Gov. Cooper said. “It can help bring down their case rates, keep their communities safer, save lives, and keep their hospital systems working.”

The 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

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.

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.

• Case Rate: The number of new cases in 14 days per 100,000 people
• Percent Positive: The percent of tests that are positive over 14 days
• 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