COVID-19 in NC: After brief uptick, new cases, hospital admissions drop again

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Most of North Carolina’s key COVID-19 numbers were headed back down after a one-week uptick.

New cases fell by 8 percent and the number of people admitted to hospitals with the virus fell by 7 percent to its lowest level since mid-May, according to the weekly update Wednesday from the state Department of Health and Human Services that covers the week of Oct. 30-Nov. 5

NCDHHS says people visited emergency rooms with COVID symptoms at the same rate that they did a week ago, accounting for 4.3 percent of all trips to ERs across the state.

And the persistently volatile count of virus particles in wastewater rose 11 percent, a week after it rose by 48 percent.

A week ago, new cases climbed 12 percent while hospital admissions rose by 4 percent.

The BA.5 omicron variant remains the dominant strain in the state, but its share of sequenced samples dipped to 60 percent during the two-week period from Oct. 16-29. It accounted for 65 percent of the sequenced samples from Oct. 9-22.

The state counted 7,924 new cases last week, the second time in three weeks that there were fewer than 8,000 of them reported. New case levels haven’t been this consistently low since mid-April.

Fewer people are being checked into hospitals with the virus, with the 583 admissions the fewest in a week since mid-May.

NCDHHS also reported a one-point increase in the number of eligible people who have received the new bivalent booster shot. A total of 14 percent of people who can get it have gotten it after another 90,000 people were added to the total. That’s the smallest weekly increase since mid-October.