A: New Hanover County Public Health reports county-wide COVID-19 data on:

• Total Positive Cases
• Non-Resident Cases (those with a permanent residence outside of NHC)
• Total Presumed Recovered Cases
• Total Presumed Active Cases
• Positive Case Demographics – including by age, gender, race & ethnicity
• Positive Case Totals Per Day
• Trend Line for Total Positive Cases

Additionally, the dashboard pulls statewide and county data from the NC Department of Health and Human Services on:

• United States Total Positive Cases
• North Carolina Total Positive Cases
• United States Total Deaths
• North Carolina Total Deaths
• New Hanover County Deaths

Most data from New Hanover County Public Health is updated nightly. Reporting is typically not received on Sundays, so totals from any Sunday updates are included in Monday’s reported figures.

All data from the NC Department of Health and Human Services, NHC Public Health data on presumed recovered/active cases, and deaths is updated according to the state’s schedule every Tuesday and Friday.

Information is confirmed by the state and checked regularly to provide accurate and up to date information for the public, so data and reports may change retroactively. Check the dashboard regularly for the most accurate information.

A: New Hanover County Public Health uses state guidance to determine how many people with COVID-19 have likely recovered from symptoms. Estimates are used since real-time, patient-specific data on symptoms are not available for all COVID-19 cases in North Carolina.

New Hanover County Public Health reports a positive case as “presumed recovered” once 14 days has passed from receipt of the positive result and the person has not been hospitalized or died from COVID-19. If a person with COVID-19 has been hospitalized, they will be considered “presumed recovered” 28 days from the positive result for non-fatal cases.

Remember that an individual’s actual recovery time could be longer or shorter, depending on the severity of symptoms and illness. Deaths from COVID-19 are not counted in presumed recovered or active cases.

“Presumed active” means that the person with COVID-19 has not yet met that 14 or 28 day period from the date of the positive test result. This number only refers to lab-confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 and does not capture all potential cases of COVID-19 in our community.

A: Public Health includes non-resident cases, defined as individuals whose permanent address is not in New Hanover County, because it is important to accurately represent all known cases of COVID-19 in our community.

A: Local hospitalization data is provided by New Hanover Regional Medical Center and is updated on their weekly dashboard here.

COVID-19 testing data is provided by the NC Department of Health & Human Services and is updated on their dashboard here. Additionally, you can see statewide information about testing, hospitalizations, outbreaks and clusters, and more on the NCDHHS dashboard.

UNCW also publishes a public dashboard with information about cases of COVID-19 among students and staff, testing and quarantine and isolation beds in use. View the UNCW dashboard here.