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After weeks of frustration stemming from low COVID-19 vaccine dose allotments, Beaufort County received some good news Thursday night.

“Beaufort County providers are expecting to receive 1,300 doses of the Moderna vaccine,” Beaufort County Health Director Jim Madson said in a news release Friday. “900 of these doses have been allocated by the state for the specific purpose of vaccinating Phase 1 and 2 – eligible marginalized community members. The administration of these vaccines to those communities will be a collaborative effort between providers, community leaders and Beaufort County’s Department of Social Services.”

All appointments previously scheduled through the Beaufort County Health Department will be fulfilled.

Beaufort County’s COVID case count metrics have been trending in a mostly positive direction with the past couple of weeks, a promising development for local health care workers who recently dealt with the county’s post-holiday season spike in cases.

The county’s seven-day average case count dropped just below 20 on Friday, after temporarily hovering as high as 70 in early January. The 21-day average case count has also been falling since then, dropping to around 25 on Friday.

Madson gave an update to the Beaufort County Commissioners on Monday, at which point the county’s total case count was 3,923.

“That means 8.3% of our population has tested positive,” Madson said Monday. “And for every positive there’s probably one or two cases that never got tested. So probably more along the lines of 25% to 30% of (county residents) have had COVID.”

Beaufort County recorded 28 new cases of COVID-19 and one coronavirus-related death Friday, as well as 27 recoveries.

Eastern North Carolina counties with total confirmed cases include: Bertie, (1,554), Beaufort (4,021),  Bladen (2,707), Brunswick (6,912), Carteret (4,036), Camden (482), Chowan (1,253), Columbus (5,355), Craven (7,460), Currituck (1,145), Dare (1,740), Duplin (5,377), Edgecombe (4,169), Gates (568), Greene (2,031), Halifax (4,661), Hertford (1,828),  Hyde (597), Jones (620), Lenoir (4,873), Martin (1,906), New Hanover (14,279), Northampton (1,600), Onslow (13,610), Pamlico (801), Pasquotank (2,767), Pender  (4,225), Perquimans (783), Pitt (15,877) Sampson (6,238), Tyrrell (272) Washington  (831), Wayne (9,655) and Wilson (7,702). Mecklenburg (89,056), Wake (67,980), Guilford (36,481) counties have the most cases.