LUMBERTON — Robeson County has surpassed 50,000 total confirmed cases of COVID-19.

The county hit the milestone during the Robeson County Health Department’s reporting period from Aug. 30 through Monday, with 284 new confirmed cases in the period. There have now been 50,006 total cases, which is about 429 cases per 1,000 county residents.

Sept. 2022 is the 30th month of the COVID-19 pandemic in Robeson County; the county’s confirmed virus case was announced on March 21, 2020. This averages to 1,667 cases per month.

While Robeson County officially hit the 50,000-case number this week, the official case count does not account for all COVID-19 cases in the county, with some cases going unreported at the pandemic’s peak and a recent rise in the availability of at-home testing.

The 284 cases reported from Aug. 30 through Monday is a marginal decline from the 286 reported from Aug. 23-29. Nonetheless, this marks the fourth straight week that the county’s number of confirmed cases declined.

“All indicators — number of cases, viral load in wastewater systems and visits to the ER and hospitalizations due to COVID-19 — have all declined statewide to the extent that 31 out of 100 NC counties remain “orange” (in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s Community Transmission Map),” county Health Department Director Bill Smith said. “In looking at the positivity rate for Robeson County, it is currently 17%, down five percentage points from a month ago.”

Robeson and Hoke counties are in the “orange” category, for high transmission, on the CDC map. All other counties bordering Robeson are “yellow,” for moderate, while the greater Wilmington area is now “green,” the low category. Robeson County has “ping-ponged” between yellow and orange over the last several weeks, Smith said.

Three new virus-related deaths were reported in Robeson County from Aug. 30 through Monday, up from one death from Aug. 23-29. This marks the third straight week with at least one virus-related death, and the seventh week of the last eight.

Bivalent booster vaccines, which includes protection against the Delta and Omicron variants, are now available at the Robeson County Health Department. The department received the Pfizer version and it is available during regular business hours. To be eligible, a recipient cannot have been vaccinated within the last two months, but most have already received a primary series; the boosters are for age 12 and older.

In non-COVID health news, eligibility for the monkeypox vaccine has been expanded. This comes as the virus has begun to spread in North Carolina, with 382 statewide cases reported by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services as of Wednesday morning, at the same time that vaccines have become more widely available.

“By accessing ncdhhs.gov/monkeypox one can find the eligibility criteria and where testing and vaccinating is occurring,” Smith said. “As a reminder, Robeson County has had one positive case to date.”