North Carolina Respiratory Virus Summary Dashboard
This dashboard is a resource for tracking and understanding the spread of respiratory illness, including COVID-19, flu (influenza), and RSV, in North Carolina.
New as of the 2024-2025 respiratory season: This dashboard includes summary information about COVID-19 wastewater monitoring. As the respiratory season continues, we'll add wastewater monitoring data for more respiratory illnesses.
This data updates weekly from the North Carolina Disease Event Tracking and Epidemiologic Collection Tool. NC DETECT is our statewide syndromic surveillance system.
For more information on the data shown here and why they’re important, see "These Measures and Why They Were Chosen."
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These Measures and Why They Were Chosen
This metric shows the percent of emergency department visits that are for a diagnosis of flu (influenza – ICD-9/ICD-10 codes) or symptoms and diagnosis of COVID-19, RSV and acute respiratory illnesses.
This metric can give us an early indication of rising levels of respiratory illness in the community, and early insight into the burden on local emergency departments. The trend of increases and decreases can show the potential risk of exposure.
More detailed data is available on the Detailed Respiratory Virus Surveillance Dashboard.
This metric shows the number of hospital admissions from emergency departments for a diagnosis of flu (influenza – ICD-9/ICD-10 codes) or symptoms and diagnosis of COVID-19, RSV, and acute respiratory illnesses. Hospital admissions for respiratory illnesses give an understanding of the impact on the health care system. When this number is high, it can mean that hospitals are strained to provide care and may not be able provide care for non-urgent medical procedures.
NCDHHS tests samples of wastewater from select treatments plants across the state to measure COVID-19, flu and RSV.
People infected with respiratory viruses shed viral particles in their stool and urine. We measure these particles to understand how these illnesses are spreading in communities.
Research suggests that viral particles of the virus that causes COVID-19 can appear in wastewater 4-6 days before the first cases are identified. This means wastewater data can serve as an early warning sign before changes show up in other data, such as reported cases or hospital visits. Flu and RSV viral particles can also be detected in wastewater upon infection.
More detailed data is available on the Wastewater Monitoring Dashboard.
The CDC has recently published updated guidance for how the wastewater viral activity level is calculated.