ASHEVILLE, NC – March 5, 2025 – Historically, there is a surge of respiratory viral infections, like COVID-19, influenza (the flu) and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), during the winter months, as people spend more time indoors because it is cold outside and due to an increase in indoor gatherings and travel during the holiday season.

The CDC’s COVID Dashboard for the week ending on February 22^nd shows:  

• Between 1-9 of the deaths in North Carolina were due to COVID, the lowest level of 6 groups.


• Emergency department visits for COVID-19 are minimal in North Carolina, representing a little more than 1% of all visits, unchanged since last week.

Wastewater monitoring can be used to provide early warning for COVID, flu and RSV outbreaks. For the week ending on February 22^nd, the COVID-19 wastewater viral activity level for the state was high. The Buncombe & Henderson counties COVID wastewater data for the week ending on February 12^th was not reported, including:

• The number of viral gene copies in each water sample


• The 15-day rate of change of the number of viral gene copies in each water sample

During the week ending on February 22^nd, viral activity levels in the North Carolina wastewater were high for influenza A and moderate for RSV, and viral activity levels in the Buncombe County wastewater were not reported for influenza A and RSV.

There was no update from the last CDC’s weekly flu surveillance report for the week ending on February 15^th.

The CDC reports that the weekly percent of positive tests for RSV for the week ending on February 15^th is below 5% for Region 4 (which are the states in the southeast U.S. including North Carolina). It had peaked to more than 15% around Christmas.

The weekly North Carolina Respiratory Virus Summary Dashboard for the week ending on February 15^th shows:

• About 14% of all emergency room patients had symptoms of a respiratory viral illness, a 20% decrease from last week.


• Influenza-like symptoms represented almost one-half of these patients


• There were almost 2 thousand hospital admissions from the emergency department in North Carolina for people who had a diagnosis, or symptoms, of respiratory viral infection, a 30% decrease since last week. More patients were admitted with the flu than any other respiratory disease.

With the coming of spring, the number of respiratory viral infections should decrease as people spend more time outdoors. This week’s numbers are trending in this direction.

Listen to the full report below:

Contact: Dr. Dick Needleman, Health reporter, 103.3 AshevilleFM, healthyasheville@ashevillefm.org