RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — People in two-thirds of North Carolina’s counties should wear masks indoors, according to the newest federal COVID-19 map.
A total of 67 counties were colored orange with the highest level of COVID in those communities on the map updated Thursday night by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For the second consecutive week, that includes every North Carolina county in the CBS 17 viewing area but four — Wake, Franklin, Johnston and Wilson.
They were among the 27 counties shaded yellow with medium spread, meaning 94 of the 100 counties were in the two top tiers.
The number of counties in the orange zone has climbed every week since late June, when there were just four. Half the state’s counties were orange two weeks ago, and there were 61 last week.
More than 61 percent of the state’s population of 10.4 million live in an orange-colored county.
The CDC advises people in orange counties to wear masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status, including in K-12 schools and other community settings.
A county moves into the orange, high-level zone if it has more than 200 new cases per week for every 100,000 people who live there, and has either more than ten COVID-19 hospital admissions that week for every 100,000 people, or if 10 percent or more of the people in hospitals have COVID-19.
CBS 17’s Joedy McCreary has been tracking COVID-19 figures since March 2020, compiling data from federal, state, and local sources to deliver a clear snapshot of what the coronavirus situation looks like now and what it could look like in the future.