ASHEVILLE, NC – February 26, 2025 – The CDC’s COVID Dashboard for the week ending on February 15th shows:
- Less than 2% of the deaths in North Carolina were due to COVID, the 2nd lowest level of 6 groups, unchanged from last week.
- Emergency department visits for COVID-19 are minimal in North Carolina, representing a little more than 1% of all visits, a moderate decrease since last week.
Wastewater monitoring can be used to provide early warning for COVID, flu and RSV outbreaks. For the week ending on February 15th, the COVID-19 wastewater viral activity level for the state is high. The Buncombe & Henderson counties COVID wastewater data for the week ending on February 12th shows:
- The number of viral gene copies in each water sample is at an orange level representing the 4th highest level of 5 groups, currently between the 60th and 80th percentile relative to the past peak level measured at the same site.
- The 15-day rate of change of the number of viral gene copies in each water sample has decreased from the previous week, at -99% to -10%, the largest level of 2 groups for a negative rate of change.
During the week ending on February 15th, viral activity levels in the North Carolina wastewater were high for influenza A and low for RSV, and viral activity levels in the Buncombe County wastewater were moderate for influenza A, and very low for RSV.
The CDC’s weekly flu surveillance report for the week ending on February 15th indicates that levels are either high or very high in 42 of 47 continental states (with Vermont not reporting). The Mountain West region has moderate levels. North Carolina is at a very high level.
The CDC reports that the weekly percent of positive tests for RSV for the week ending on February 15th is below 5% for Region 4 (which are the states in the southeast U.S. including North Carolina). It had peaked to more than 15% around Christmas.
The weekly North Carolina Respiratory Virus Summary Dashboard for the week ending on February 15th shows:
- 17% of all emergency room patients had symptoms of a respiratory viral illness, a 20% decrease from last week.
- Influenza-like symptoms represented more than one-half of these patients
- There were more than 25 hundred hospital admissions from the emergency department in North Carolina for people who had a diagnosis, or symptoms, of respiratory viral infection, a 24% decrease since last week. More patients were admitted with the flu than other respiratory disease.
Listen to the full report below:
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Contact: Dr. Dick Needleman, Health reporter, 103.3 AshevilleFM, healthyasheville@ashevillefm.org