Final Cary COVID Report: February 16, 2022

Cary, NC — In last month’s COVID report, the focus locally and nationally was set on increasing access to tests and reaching the end of the Omicron surge. Fortunately, in both areas, there have been noticeable improvements.

Chart by the New York Times.

Omicron Continues to Plunge

Omicron proved to be the largest variant surge by case numbers. Data showed that the omicron infections are tamer in symptoms than the previous delta and alpha variants, but it is also certainly the most transmissible of all.

Another unique factor to omicron is that, just about as quickly as its surge hit record highs, it plummeted similarly in countries like South Africa, the United Kingdom, and now the United States.

One month ago, on January 15, 2022, the U.S. hit a high of 805,062 daily average cases and that number was reported at 154,912 Tuesday, February 14, 2022.

With no new variants on the radar at the moment, springtime in Cary just might be a cautiously optimistic one.

Testing Site in Cary Extended through February

The no-cost COVID-19 testing site at WakeMed Soccer Park has been extended through February.

The site is managed by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and is open weekdays, Monday-Friday from 7 AM to 4 PM.

According to the Town of Cary in a news release, the tests being used are PCR tests and results will typically be available in 24-28 hours. Pre-registration is required, but appointments are not. Additionally, there are no out-of-pocket costs for testing at this site.

For more details on the site, see our previous coverage.

That’s a Wrap — The Final COVID Report

For those who haven’t yet seen the announcement, CaryCitizen’s final publication date is coming up next Wednesday, February 23, 2022. This, of course, means today marks our 28th and final Cary COVID Report.

We started documenting the data in May 2020, first experimenting with daily and weekly reports before moving to a monthly check-in. It’s hard to believe that the first question we tackled was, “When is it safe to go out?”

We learned the phrase “social distancing” alongside our readers and created our own Cary-based data charts from information provided by Cary’s activated Emergency Operations Center. We monitored the numbers as the medical community urged safety parameters to help “flatten the curve.” We reported on Cary’s state of emergency orders and the implementation and lifting of masking protocols as those happened from the mayor.

As the writer of many of these reports, I remember it feeling so odd in the July 15, 2020 COVID Report to type that it had already been 20 weeks of a pandemic. At that time, I never would have imagined writing a COVID Report exactly 101 weeks since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic.

From vaccine announcements and following those rates to sharing testing news, CaryCitizen has reported 2+ years of the story of this pandemic on a local level. We covered the rises, the declines, the charts, and consistently I was proud to see and to report Cary as the municipality with the least cases per capita in Wake County.

As CaryCitizen closes this chapter of Cary COVID Reports, we would like to thank all medical staff and first responders for their invaluable work during these difficult years. We will leave you with a few of our go-to local, state and national resources for those inclined to continue following the data.

Story by Ashley Kairis. Photos courtesy of Town of Cary and The New York Times.

All the Cary news for the informed Cary citizen. Subscribe by email.