ASHEVILLE, NC – June 3, 2022 – The Buncombe County COVID-19 metrics are on the North Carolina COVID Dashboard. Data from the week ending on June 4 indicate:
- The CDC reports that the risk level for Buncombe County is medium for the week ending June 9th. For a community at a medium risk level, the CDC recommends:
- Wear a mask on public transportation.
- You may choose to wear a mask at any time as an additional precaution to protect yourself and others.
- If you are at high risk for severe illness, consider wearing a mask indoors in public and take additional precautions.
- There are 232 cases per 100,000 residents in the last 7 days down from 270 cases from the previous week.
- 66% of the total population have received their full primary vaccination series. This is unchanged for over 3 months
- 64% of people with full primary vaccination series have had at least one booster. This is up from 63% last week.
- The seven-day daily average of COVID-19 hospitalizations and of ICU patients are unchanged over the previous week.
- Wastewater surveillance may provide an early warning before individual testing shows that COVID-19 is spreading. The state dashboard reports that the 15-day rate of change of viral load for the Metropolitan Sewer District for Buncombe County is severely increasing for the time period ending June 1st. The CDC website reports that the rate of change is severely increasing for the time period ending June 6th.
The Department of Health and Human Services recommends:
- Get vaccinated and boosted when eligible.
- People with any COVID symptoms or exposure to someone with COVID should get tested
- People who are positive for COVID-19 or do not feel well should stay home
Vaccination sites and testing sites can be located through the North Carolina and Buncombe County Department of Health and Human Services.
Save your face masks:
- The risk level may rise with a new variant
- A person at high risk for severe illness should speak with their health care provider
- Mask wearing is recommended for persons with a positive test, having symptoms, or exposure to someone with COVID-19
- Effective May 4, 2022, the North Carolina Department of Health & Human Services and the CDC recommend wearing masks in health care and long-term care settings. The N95 or KN95 mask offers the best protection. Wear a mask that is well-fitting.
At the most recent Community Update on June 7th, Buncombe County Public Health Director Stacie Saunders says, “We are beginning to learn how to normalize our lives with COVID-19 likely to be around for the foreseeable future. This means riding out waves of cases with the tools we have like staying up to date of vaccines, utilizing testing options for quick identification, adding on additional precautions like masks and distancing when transmission is higher, and accessing treatment quickly if we are at risk for severe illness. It also means reducing and increasing the level of all of those tools and communications based on level of surges.”
Listen to the full report below:
Contact: Dick Needleman, Health reporter, 103.3 AshevilleFM, healthyasheville@ashevillefm.org