How is this NC county the last without a reported coronavirus case?
Updated May 3 with developments.
Coronavirus has invaded nearly all of North Carolina, but as the pandemic has quickly spread, two remote mountain counties went two months without a single reported case.
Avery and Yancey counties boast the state’s highest elevation and some of its most famous scenery, and through April, no one there tested positive for COVID-19 — a distinction among North Carolina’s 100 counties.
On May 3, the state reported the first case in Yancey County — leaving Avery alone without a reported case.
The reasons, like much regarding the virus, are unclear. Both counties are remote and thinly populated, but more than a dozen places with fewer people have positive test results. Tyrrell County, the state’s smallest with roughly 4,000 people, has four.
“I don’t know,” said Diane Creek, health director in both Avery and Yancey counties. “I wish I could tell you. ... I hope we come through the whole thing with zero, but I’m not going to bet my house on it.”
The virus arrived in North Carolina on March 3, when Wake County reported its first positive COVID-19 case: a resident who had visited a nursing home in Washington, where the epidemic had already broken out.
Because it was an isolated case, and “community spread” had not yet taken hold, the state health department urged frequent hand washing.
But conditions ramped up quickly.
By the end of March, North Carolina had more than 1,000 cases, and Gov. Roy Cooper issued a statewide stay-at-home order limiting crowd sizes to 10 people and shuttering schools and all but essential businesses.
With a week left in April, the virus had spread to 93 counties, hitting all but sparsely populated places on the coast and the Tennessee line, falling one by one until only two remained.
Avery and Yancey counties both have about 17,000 residents, among the smallest populations in the state, and Mitchell County, sitting right between them as the third place under Creek’s supervision, has only about 15,000 people and has had five coronavirus cases reported by the state DHHS.
14-day quarantine helps
Avery is home to Grandfather Mountain, and Yancey includes Mount Mitchell, and both rely heavily on outdoor tourism. State parks, trails, campgrounds and hotels have closed, and Creek said people are staying home except for groceries.
“I haven’t had to fight people,” she said.
One key component, she said, is the quarantine rules. Anyone traveling into Avery County for an overnight stay has been required to self-quarantine for 14 days, a rule set by Avery County commissioners.
“There’s a lot of people with a second house,” Creek said. “They come back and they think, ‘We’re going to hide out and we’re going to miss the whole thing.’ “
Still, DHHS has warned that its totals are likely far lower than the total spread of the virus, and the counties are not necessarily clear because no positive cases have been reported.
Fewer than 200 people had been tested so far in both counties combined as of the end of April, and supplies have been low. Creek said a new shipment of swabs has arrived and may allow the counties to test people outside the highest-risk groups.
“We want nothing more than to test more people,” the Yancey County Health Department posted on its Facebook page. “We believe it’s in Yancey County somewhere, whether it’s in asymptomatic people or in mildly sick people, we just need to find it.”
This story was originally published April 30, 2020 at 1:11 PM with the headline "How is this NC county the last without a reported coronavirus case?."