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Technical issues, submission delays push number of coronavirus hospitalizations down :: WRAL.com

September 8, 2020
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The state on Monday released a steep decline in the number of people being treated in hospitals for the novel coronavirus, but warned that the data could be incomplete.

“Since Friday, Sept. 4, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has experienced continued technical and submission issues with hospital systems’ data, which have been exacerbated by the holiday weekend, resulting in incomplete hospitalization data. NCDHHS is working with all parties to resolve these issues. Because the COVID-19 NC Dashboard displays only data that it is received, it is likely that actual hospital numbers are higher than what is on the current dashboard,” the state wrote in releasing the latest numbers.

Through Monday, the state had recorded 177,582 cases of the coronavirus, with 156,652 of those people believed to have recovered, for a recovery rate of more than 88%.

New reported COVID-19 cases, deaths in NC


New laboratory confirmed cases and deaths are based on daily reporting from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services via the agency’s COVID-19 dashboard. The dashboard started publishing case counts on March 13 and death counts on March 26. Because these case and death numbers can lag slightly based on the time it takes labs to process tests and health officials to confirm cases, we’re also calculating a seven-day rolling average to show the curve of cases. NOTE: During the week of Aug. 30, DHHS made corrections to its reported case counts for several days in August after LabCorp reported a delay of nearly 1,000 positive test results. Read more about the corrections and compare the changes here.

Source: N.C. DHHS
Graphic: Tyler Dukes, WRAL

Almost 3,000 people in North Carolina have died of complications from COVID-19 since March.

The state reported 1,515 new cases of the coronavirus on Monday, a rate that has been pretty steady for about two weeks and lower than the mid-July peak.

Total COVID-19 cases, deaths by zip code


The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services began releasing zip code-level data on cases and deaths on May 1. Search by zip code to find the rates of cases and deaths for your area. Aggregate counts are based on where patients live. DHHS has supressed counts for some zip codes with populations of less than 500 and cases less than five due to privacy concerns. Population estimates for each zip code, included in the state’s data, were calculated by Esri Inc. through a state contract. Due to differences in zip code geographies used in a new version of the state’s dashboard launched May 20, some case and deaths counts here may differ slightly from that new dashboard. To stay consistent, WRAL is using state data originally published May 1 and updated by DHHS daily through its ArcGIS site.

Source: N.C. DHHS // Updated: Sept. 7
Graphic: Tyler Dukes, WRAL // Get the data

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