NC Threat-Free Index as of Oct. 19 | Eastern NC Now

Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the John Locke Foundation. The author of this post is Jon Sanders.

    For those disinclined to be ruled by fear and unwilling to join in glaring at their fellow citizens suspiciously as if they are germ-ridden disease vectors, especially if they look hale and fit, here's the weekly update on how virus-free your fellow North Carolinians are:

• There are now 218,541 North Carolinians presumed to be recovered from COVID-19
• Only one-tenth of NC's total case count constantly trumpeted by the Cooper administration and media are active cases (note: a case of COVID isn't a permanent infection, and only someone with an active case of the virus can conceivably transmit it to you)
• Active cases represent just over 0.2% (two-tenths of one percent) of NC's population
• Nearly nine out of every ten (88.4%) of NC's total cases are recovered, meaning they are no longer infectious
• Only 0.04% of people in NC have died with COVID-19 (regardless of actual cause of death)
• Over 97.6% of people in NC have never had a lab-confirmed case of COVID-19 (note: this proportion will always decline, but we have been living with this virus since February, as far as testing is concerned)
• All considered, over 99.7% of people in NC pose no threat to anyone of passing along a virus most have never had or the rest have recovered from (note: this proportion will fluctuate based on the relative growth in lab-confirmed cases vs. recoveries)