Report: Viral spread of COVID-19 appears to be slowing in NC

The preliminary report cautions, however, that the number of both cases and deaths continue to rise.

"As the state continues to expand the scale of its public health response (e.g., testing, contact tracing, etc.), we must continue to monitor short-term COVID-19 trends and act quickly to mitigate rapid upswings if confirmed case count and hospital demand start to rise even more substantially in the coming days and weeks," the report says.

To get a sense of how the virus might spread through the end of May in North Carolina, collaborators on the team modeled three scenarios based on different transmission rates. Scenarios with higher transmission rates saw cases grow much more quickly, while lower transmission rates showed a much flatter curve.

With moderate transmission rates, the model estimates about 330,000 people in North Carolina will be infected with the novel coronavirus, a figure that includes both lab-confirmed cases and undiagnosed cases not revealed by testing.

But the vast majority of those with COVID-19 won't need hospitalization. So with those case growth projections, researchers were able to estimate the impact of COVID-19 cases over the next few weeks on the state's hospital capacity.

Their findings show that North Carolina's hospitals might exceed their normal bed capacity only in the most dire scenario, where transmission rates are the highest. The report adds that researchers don't believe the state is on this path, and concludes such a scenario is, for the most part, unlikely.

But two of the scenarios – those with high and moderate transmission – show an increased likelihood of exceeding hospital capacity for intensive care beds by the end of May. In the near-term, however, the report says ICU capacity "appears sufficient" despite a "plausible scenario of pressure on healthcare capacity" with higher transmission rates.

"It is quite unlikely we will see the kind of short-term hospitalization growth rates necessary to put our healthcare system in serious crisis within 4 weeks of today, especially given a phased reopening strategy," the report says.

There is some bad news, however. The report lists among its unfavorable factors, or "headwinds," that the last few weeks have seen spikes of infection at high-risk communities such as nursing homes and adult care homes. And although one sign the state is containing the pandemic is to see a sustained decrease in the number of deaths, "we do not appear to be there yet."

"Despite these notes of near-term optimism, it is very important to avoid a sense of complacency about the potential impact of COVID-19," the report says.

The Times analysis uses county-level data aggregated up to the metropolitan area (a statistical designation established by U.S. Census Bureau).

As of Tuesday, the data show COVID-19 deaths in the Durham-Chapel Hill metro have seen the largest growth rate of any metro area in the country in the last two weeks. Deaths there have doubled about every two days.

But the raw numbers started relatively small. The three counties that make up the metro area – Person, Orange, Durham and Chatham – now count 37 deaths as of Tuesday night. Two weeks ago, that number stood at just three.

Orange County spokesperson Todd McGee pointed to those cases as the primary driver for rising numbers, at least in his county.

"We think the reason our cases within the general public are so low is that our community has embraced the need for social distancing. The county began pushing personal safety measures in early March before any cases were discovered within our county," McGee wrote in an email Tuesday afternoon. "We were also one of the first counties in the region to declare a local emergency, which heightened public awareness of the pandemic."

The Raleigh metro area also made the Times' list for potential death hotspots at No. 12, while Fayetteville was No. 8 on the list for potential case hotspots.