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Our latest brief on COVID-19 in North Carolina: “Reported COVID-19 Cases in North Carolina: Trends in Age, Time, and Place”. This brief is focused on geospatial and temporal variation in reported cases by age. co-authors @A_McKethan @PharmDJD 1/7 https://twitter.com/nccovid/status/1318604144710733825
For this brief, we tackled 3 questions: 1) How did age profiles vary by region over time? 2) How did age profiles vary by rurality over time? 3) How did age profiles vary by time and proximity to large universities? We use the PHRST regions and NCHS Urban-Rural. (Maps below) 2/7
1)We find that age profiles vary by region; although 20-30 and 80+ ages have the highest statewide, the areas around Greenville and Fayetteville skew older (compared to, e.g., Asheville). 3/7
2)Age profiles have shifted older among Small Metro and Nonmetro esp. compared to Large Central (Mecklenburg and Wake). Note that the incidence of (per-capita) detected cases are also higher in those regions (not just older). 4/7
3)Statewide, the case rates are largely independent of how far ZIP is from the closest university. There was a considerable increase in cases among 18-22 year olds starting in mid-August. Increases were especially high among ZIPs <10 miles from the closest university. 5/7
There was little evidence of the high infection rates among 18-22 year olds leading to an increase among 30+ near large universities. What is apparent is the increase in more distant ZIPs – consistent with the increase in rural areas. 6/7
We were inspired for some analyses by some from the great work happening to our west at @VUHealthPol including @melissamcpheete and @johngraves9 . -30- 7/7
