News

In April of 2020, Henderson County health providers were struggling to respond to an outbreak of Covid-19 cases in congregant care facilities and facing the highest death rate in the state. Thirteen months later, Henderson County ranks as the safest county in the state, standing alone as the only green county by the state's measurement.

The Covid-19 County Alert System, which is managed by the state Department of Health and Human Services, is designed to help individuals, businesses and community organizations and public officials track how their county is faring and to make decisions about actions to take slow the spread of the virus. The alert system uses five tiers of metrics to rank counties:

Green: Low Community Spread
Light Yellow: Moderate Community Spread

Yellow: Significant Community Spread
Orange: Substantial Community Spread
Red: Critical Community Spread

Because no one metric provides a complete picture, the Covid-19 County Alert System uses a combination of three metrics: case rate, the percent of tests that are positive, and hospital impact within the county. In the latest report from DHHS, Henderson County had fewer than 10 cases per 100,000 population.