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There's a lot happening at the #NCGA this week and we can't get to it all. But many of these bills are repeats of prior years' bills. #SB405 is a repeat of a 2019 bill that we wrote about here: northcarolinahealthnews.org/2…

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Anne Blythe

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Coronavirus Today – Apr. 28 — Peeling back the mask mandate for outdoors

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Coronavirus Today – Apr. 28 — Peeling back the mask mandate for outdoors - North Carolina Health News

As North Carolina works to get more adults vaccinated, outdoor gatherings can be larger and masks can come down.

North Carolinians will soon be able to go outside without wearing face coverings and not be in violation of the state’s mask mandate.

Gov. Roy Cooper announced on Wednesday that after 5 p.m. Friday face masks will no longer be required in outdoor settings, though public health officials continue to recommend them for people not yet vaccinated against COVID-19 or in close proximity to others at large gatherings. 

The mask mandate remains in place for indoor settings and is likely to stay in place until two-thirds of the adult population have rolled up their collective sleeves for a jab, Cooper said.

The number of people who may gather indoors will increase to 100 from 50, according to the order. Two hundred people may gather together outdoors, double what it has been most of April.

Occupancy limits currently in place remain the same, though.

The new executive order takes effect at 5 p.m. Friday and remains in effect until 5 p.m. June 1.

The news comes as nearly 49 percent of North Carolinians 18 and older have been at least partially vaccinated and nearly 40 percent are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Cooper also told reporters during an afternoon briefing that he expected to lift gathering limits and other capacity and social distancing restrictions on June 1 if North Carolina’s trends and metrics continue to go in the right direction.

“That is the plan,” Cooper said. “It would be great if we had two-thirds vaccinated by then, but we probably won’t.”

On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance for fully vaccinated Americans on when and if masks are needed outdoors.

“Over the past year, we have spent a lot of time telling Americans what they cannot do, what they should not do,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky said during a briefing by the White House COVID-19 Response Team. “Today, I’m going to tell you some of the things you can do if you are fully vaccinated.”

As a reminder, Walensky underscored the CDC’s definition of “fully vaccinated” as 14 days after receiving a second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or a single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

“There are many situations where fully vaccinated people do not need to wear a mask, particularly if they are outdoors,” Walensky said. “If you are fully vaccinated and want to attend a small outdoor gathering with people who are vaccinated and unvaccinated or dine at an outdoor restaurant with friends from multiple households, the science shows if you’re vaccinated, you can do so safely unmasked.”

Nonetheless, the CDC director and Mandy Cohen, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, continue to recommend masks in crowded outdoor stadiums, concert arenas and other venues where it can be difficult to keep a safe distance apart.

The new executive order means that youth sports teams playing outdoors no longer are required to wear masks while on the field.

“I do want to remind folks that folks under 16 are not able to get vaccinated so they are an unvaccinated population,” Cohen said in response to a question about youth sports. “For all of our unvaccinated population, whether it’s children or adults, we continue to recommend that folks wear masks outdoors when they can’t be distant from other people. So the unvaccinated population, we continue to recommend wearing masks.”

COVID charts, graphs and vaccines

Cohen provided an update on the state’s trends and metrics on Wednesday, showing that North Carolina continues to see 1,500 to 2,000 new COVID-19 cases per day, a higher number than public health officials prefer as more contagious variants are detected.

“I will note that we are seeing some of our lowest levels of COVID testing and that context is important when interpreting this metric,” she added.

The rate of positive COVID tests for those North Carolinians getting tested is slightly higher than 5 percent, a goal of the public health team.

The number of people who are visiting emergency departments across the state with COVID-19 symptoms has dropped dramatically and has remained steady at a baseline level for weeks.

“As you can see, while our numbers are mostly stable, we have more work to do to beat back this pandemic,” Cooper said.

One metric that Cooper and his public health team would like to see go up swiftly is the number of people getting a vaccine.

That weekly number has started to plateau and even decline, a trend that is prompting the public health team to shift tactics for trying to get more people immunized against COVID-19.

“No longer are we thinking about large, mass vaccination sites, but rather making sure that it’s easy for folks to access very close to their homes,” Cohen said.

More and more, vaccines are being allocated to pharmacies, physicians’ offices and even to dentists who want to administer shots to their patients. Many counties are relying on mobile clinics and smaller community events to bring shots to reluctant or difficult to reach populations.

Departments such as the Rockingham County Division of Public Health have started services to get vaccines to the homebound.

“We now know that most folks, not only here in North Carolina, but around the country, can access vaccine within five miles of their home,” Cohen said. “We want folks to know, there aren’t long lines. There isn’t a scramble to get appointments. There’s supply here in North Carolina, it’s easy for everyone to access, and they’re completely free.”

DHHS also has launched a “Bringing Summer Back” get out the vaccine campaign.

During two weeks in May and two weeks in June, community organizations will rally together across the state to promote vaccination.

Elizabeth City, a public health issue

The push for vaccination comes as Elizabeth City residents and others from across the state and around the country are wrestling with the death of Andrew Brown Jr., a Black man who died last week after Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputies opened fire while serving drug-related arrest warrants on him.

The case quickly renewed chants of “Black Lives Matter,” less than a week after Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer was convicted of second-degree murder, second-degree manslaughter and third-degree murder in the death of George Floyd.

The cases of Black men dying at the hands of police have been described by past leaders of the American Medical Association as a public health issue that no longer can be ignored.

Cooper, who gave his State of the State address to the state House of Representatives on Monday, called for stamping out long-standing institutional racism. 

“We must all stand together to stop racial injustice in North Carolina,” Cooper told House members earlier this week. “In all the areas that are important for people’s success — health care, education, economic strength, the justice system — we must confront systems that favor some and harm others and we must fix them.”

On Wednesday, Cooper was asked about the Brown case during his briefing with reporters.

A Superior Court judge ruled earlier in the day to delay any public release of law enforcement body camera footage for at least 30 days as requested by the Pasquotank County District Attorney.

Brown’s immediate family members and their lawyer will have access to the footage within 10 days, according to the judge’s ruling.

Cooper was asked whether the delay was healthy for a city, state and country hungering for answers.

State law, adopted in 2016, requires a court order for the release of law enforcement body camera footage, a statute that can leave the public in the dark about what happened while tensions are high.

Cooper had not seen the court proceedings on the potential release of the camera footage before the briefing with reporters and did not want to comment on the judge’s ruling.

“I continue to support a change in the law that would presume these kinds of videos are public record and that a court would have to come in and find reasons not to have them released to the public,” Cooper said Wednesday. “The law is the other way now, they can only be released unless a judge says they can be released. I’ll just continue to say I believe that for trust in the system and confidence that these videos should be released as quickly as possible.”

Any U.S. Senate runs planned?

As North Carolina continues to plot its way out of the pandemic, neither Cooper nor Cohen has plans to seek the U.S. Senate seat that will be on the ballot in 2022.

Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican from Winston-Salem, has announced that he will not seek another term, leaving many in the political arena to speculate about who might be in the field of candidates.

Cooper has said already that he did not plan to seek the office. On Tuesday, he added that he had no plans at this point in the process to endorse anyone who had announced their campaign.

Cohen came to the podium after that to respond to a question about whether she would be launching a campaign.

“I have no plans to run for the United States Senate,” Cohen said. “I love my job here, working for the governor and for the people of North Carolina.”

Cohen could be heard laughing in the background as the governor responded to the news when back at the podium.

“Well that’s a relief,” Cooper said.

Coronavirus by the numbers

According to NCDHHS data, as of Wednesday afternoon:

  • 12,538 people total in North Carolina have died of coronavirus.
  • 965,536 have been diagnosed with the disease. Of those, 1,117 are in the hospital. The hospitalization figure is a snapshot of people hospitalized with COVID-19 infections on a given day and does not represent all of the North Carolinians who may have been in the hospital throughout the course of the epidemic.
  • 924,490 people who had COVID-19 are presumed to have recovered. This weekly estimate does not denote how many of the diagnosed cases in the state are still infectious. Nor does it reflect the number of so-called “long-haul” survivors of COVID who continue to feel the effects of the disease beyond the defined “recovery” period.
  • To date, 12,322,425 tests have been completed in North Carolina. As of July 7, 2020, all labs in the state are required to report both their positive and negative test results to the lab, so that figure includes all of the COVID-19 tests performed in the state.
  • People ages 25-49 make up the largest group of cases (39 percent). While 15 percent of the positive diagnoses were in people ages 65 and older, seniors make up 82 percent of coronavirus deaths in the state. 
  • 250 outbreaks are ongoing in group facilities across the state, including nursing homes and correctional and residential care facilities.
  • As of Wednesday, 148 COVID-19 patients were in intensive care units across the state.
  • As of April 28, 7,017,344 North Carolinians have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine.
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Early childhood education advocates worry Senate bill could erode quality of care

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Early childhood education advocates worry Senate bill could erode quality of care - North Carolina Health News

As the child care industry works to rebuild after the pandemic, there’s debate about how best to help child care centers.

By Anne Blythe

When Carmen Morrison closed the doors of Marizetta Kerry Child Development Center for nearly a month a year ago, the executive director of the Charlotte facility had no idea how much COVID-19 would alter the lifestyles of her staff, the children they care for and their families.

“We didn’t know what we were dealing with back then,” Morrison said in a recent telephone interview.

Morrison and her staff spent that downtime during the early lockdown in 2020 figuring out how to reopen a business that was so essential to the children whose parents and caregivers could not work from home.

There would be no more shared Play-Doh and arts and crafts. Each child would be given their own bucket with supplies inside after temperature checks at the door. Staff wore gloves and two face masks. There was rigorous hand-washing and other safety measures.

“Everybody was nervous,” Morrison said, noting that 50 to 60 of the 170 children enrolled before the pandemic returned to the center.

Most of the 27 employees came back, too, Morrison said. The bonuses and state subsidies helped, but nonetheless, the five star-rated center has taken a financial hit.

As COVID-19 vaccines provide hope of getting to the other side of the pandemic, Morrison and other child care center operators are looking to the federal and state government to help them stabilize their businesses and provide quality care as more parents go back to work.

North Carolina lawmakers put forward a proposal on April 7, Senate Bill 570, that has been touted as a measure designed to help the child care industry get back on its feet.

But parts of the bill that would drastically change how child care centers are rated trouble Morrison and others in early childhood education.

Lowering education standards

Senate Bill 570, sponsored by Sen. Joyce Krawiec (R-Kernersville), Sen. Jim Burgin (R-Angier), and Sen. Jim Perry (R-Kinston), has three sections related to the Environmental Rating Scale, or star rating system, that has been in place for more than 20 years.

In 2000, the North Carolina Division of Child Development and Early Education moved to a star-rated licensing system that evaluated centers on staff education levels, program standards and compliance levels.

The system was changed in 2005 to include only education levels and program standards. The state Department of Health and Human Services assesses compliance every six months, and each facility must maintain a grade of at least 75 percent to remain open.

The bill proposed this month would lower the standards of post-high school education that a center’s staff must have in order to receive the top-tier five-star rating but does not alter how program standards are rated in the star system.

Star rating license sample, courtesy NC DHHS

As it is now, 75 percent of the lead teachers in a program must be working toward an associate, bachelor’s or master’s degree in childhood education for the program to earn enough points to get that coveted five-star rating.

Senate Bill 570 would lower that measure to 50 percent of the lead teachers, a change that child advocates say could weaken North Carolina’s child care system.

“It undermines parents’ ability to make an informed decision,” Muffy Grant, executive director of the NC Early Childhood Foundation, said in a recent telephone interview. “A center could be a two-star today and become a five-star if this passes.”

‘It ignores the science’

The bill proposed keeps the lowered threshold in place until 2027. It also postpones any environmental review assessments for up to six months after Gov. Roy Cooper declares North Carolina no longer is in a state of emergency related to COVID-19.

The six-month postponement largely has been accepted as a sensible measure to pursue after the pandemic showed the frailty of a child care industry that operates on thin margins.

Many centers shuttered. Some that didn’t close had to cut staff because they lost income from parents who themselves might have lost jobs and no longer could afford day care or who kept their children home for other reasons.

“Hopefully as this time moves forward, we can rebuild the workforce again, gird up more workers in this field,” Morrison said.

When that happens, though, Morrison says it’s important to maintain an educated staff because of the little minds they are helping to shape at such a crucial point of a young child’s life.

“Why are we doing this?” Morrison said. “To educate. When we have that mindset it’s important to learn what we can about early childhood education.”

Grant, of the NC Early Childhood Foundation, echoed that thought.

“The negative ramifications of this bill is really that it ignores the science,” Grant said. “Children need teachers skilled in healthy development.”

The General Assembly in 2012 recognized that connection and tied state subsidies to the star rating system, saying that state funding should go to facilities that had at least three stars.

‘We’re seeing classrooms closed’

Sherry Melton, a lobbyist for the N.C. Licensed Child Care Association, has advocated for the changes proposed in SB 570.

In a telephone interview on Monday, Melton explained why her client thinks some of the changes are warranted but noted that there is flexibility on certain timelines and on any unintended consequences of the legislation as currently written.

The question she has for parents and others worried about lowering the percentage of lead teachers who must have an associate degree or higher to get five stars is this: Is it better to have child care teachers with degrees or keep classrooms open at centers that are having a difficult time recruiting such educators to their classrooms?

Melton said the child care industry was in crisis before the pandemic but is in a more dire situation now as centers try to rebuild the workforce.

“While we’re so desperate to protect those star ratings, we’re seeing classrooms closed,” Melton said.

Lauren Hayworth, chief operating officer for A Child’s World Learning Center, which has two five-star centers and two four-star centers in Forsyth and Davie counties, has been able to stay open throughout the pandemic.

“In the beginning, I thought we were going to have to close,” Hayworth said Tuesday during a telephone interview.

That didn’t happen, though. Occasionally, a center had to close a classroom after a staff member or, in some rare cases, a child tested positive for COVID-19.

Though the number of children in their care dropped in the early months of the pandemic, in April they brought back 500 of the 600 students for which the centers have capacity.

Before the pandemic, A Child’s World Learning Center had about 110 staff members.

“We have 75 staff members now,” Hayworth said. “The main problem I’m having right now is the good quality staff I have now, the stress is starting to wear on them.”

Higher pay elsewhere

In her search to bring more people on board, Hayworth has trouble persuading applicants with associate degrees to take a job for the $10 to $13 an hour that the centers can pay.

“When I get people in, who have a degree, they want $16 to $17 an hour,” Hayworth said.

Hayworth said Senate Bill 570 could provide centers time to rebuild their workforces without being penalized in the star rating system if 75 percent of the lead teachers don’t have at least an associate’s degree.

Though Hayworth understands the concerns about whether the quality of care would be eroded if the star rating system is changed, she contends that her centers with four stars provide the same quality of care as those with five stars. The only difference between them, she said, is that two of the centers have more team leaders with degrees.

“At this time, I’m looking for people with good hearts,” Hayworth said.

‘A poison pill’

Sen. Mike Woodard, a Durham Democrat, tried to pull back the curtain on the genesis of the bill during a Senate committee meeting earlier this month but couldn’t satisfy his curiosity.

Efforts to reach Krawiec, a sponsor of the bill, by email and telephone were unsuccessful.

“We understand these are extraordinary times,” Woodard said. “This way this bill is written, it’s a really bad piece of legislation.”

Woodard said he’s OK with the section of the bill that delays the environmental review assessment for a short time period after the state of emergency is lifted. But the part of the bill that would lower the education requirement for early childhood educators was unacceptable.

“That’s a poison pill,” Woodard said.

Melton, the lobbyist who advocated for the legislation, said that section is designed to give people interested in joining the child care workforce time to get degrees.

“The six years came from trying to give somebody new to the field time to get to that point,” Melton said. “If an early childhood educator can only take a course a semester, then it’s going to take them about six years to get an associate’s degree.”

Others questioned whether the motive is to phase out the star rating system.

‘The problem comes back to compensation’

It’s no secret that many centers are having difficulty attracting workers whose pay is not always commensurate to the importance of the job they are being asked to do.

They point out that McDonald’s and some of the big box retail chains pay $15 an hour, putting many day care providers in an untenable position.

Instead of lowering the education standards for providers, early childhood advocates suggest investing more in the workforce.

“We want to professionalize the workforce,” Grant said.

Michele Rivest, senior campaign director for the North Carolina Early Education Coalition, described SB 570 as a conversation starter that attempts to address the workforce crisis but does not do what it should to get at the heart of the issue.

“In the end, the problem comes back to compensation,” Rivest said Monday during a telephone interview. “We know that 40 percent of all our educators before the pandemic were living in poverty.”

In 20 counties, the average pay for early childhood educators was barely $10 an hour. In some counties, it’s $11 or $12 per hour, according to Rivest.

Rivest would like to see the conversation about rebuilding the child care industry to shift to how to use federal and state funds to supplement the early childhood education programs that more than 60 percent of North Carolina families rely on to care for their little ones while they’re at work.

Instead of changing the five-star rating system to lower the percentage of lead teachers that need to have a post high school degree for the top rating, Rivest would like to see legislators and others tackle how to invest more in the child care workforce without making tuition and fees even more exorbitant for parents.

“What I think is really the opportunity in this bill is now legislators realize that there is a workforce crisis,” Rivest said. “If we just reverse course and say all of what we’ve done for the last 20 years in North Carolina doesn’t matter, then shame on us.”

Child care providers and advocates would like to see some of the $1.3 billion coming to North Carolina from the American Rescue Plan used to address the compensation problem. The White House announced on April 15, while releasing $39 billion in funds, that states should use the allocations to “address the child care crisis created by COVID-19.”

“We definitely think this $1.3 billion coming from Congress will help,” Rivest said. “We are going to face this big crisis where there’s not enough child care for working families. We need to build it back. That’s what this federal money is for, it’s to allow us to do that.”

Melton wouldn’t argue against using the federal aid to help child care centers get back on their feet, but she pointed out that it’s not an unlimited supply of funds.

“What happens at the end of three years?” Melton asked.

Despite their differences, Melton said she hoped the many organizations interested in the child care industry and early childhood education could come together to create something that addresses common problems.

“I hope we can all work together,” Melton said.

Hayworth, the chief operating officer for A Child’s World Learning, echoed that sentiment.

“I don’t want everyone in this industry to be on opposite sides of the fence, because we all need to work together,” Hayworth said.

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‘I believe we can roar into the future together,’ governor tells lawmakers

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‘I believe we can roar into the future together,’ governor tells lawmakers - North Carolina Health News

In his State of the State address, Roy Cooper urges compromise, not partisan bickering.

By Anne Blythe

Gov. Roy Cooper stood at the front of the state House of Representatives chamber on Monday night and provided lawmakers his take on the state of the state.

As North Carolina begins to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic that laid bare many of the state’s systemic inequities, Cooper offered notes of optimism as he tried to strike a chord with a General Assembly chamber with which he has often been at political odds.

Cooper hit on many of the themes that he campaigned for a  second term as governor in a state where voters elected a Democrat in the statewide race to lead the executive branch of government and sent more Republicans than Democrats to the Senate and House of Representatives in district races.

After acknowledging the 12,560 coronavirus deaths in North Carolina and calling out the sacrifices of health care workers and teachers in the face of unprecedented challenges, he expressed his belief that the people of the state are “strong, resilient and ready to face the challenges of the future.” 

“I believe that we will rebuild from this pandemic to be even stronger than before,” Cooper said. “And I believe that we can roar into the future together, creating a shared recovery that ensures our best days lie ahead.”

Cooper called for:

  • Expanding Medicaid to cover more than half a million North Carolinians who are low-income workers without health insurance, people with disabilities and others who don’t now qualify for the federal program but could under a provision in the Affordable Care Act.
  • Raising teacher pay.
  • Investing more in higher education, workforce training programs, early childhood education and more so that North Carolinians will be eligible for new jobs offered by Apple and other companies either coming to or expanding in this state.
  • Putting an infrastructure bond on the ballot that brings high-speed internet access to all corners of the state, modernizes school buildings, and invests in clean energy jobs and businesses.

The Biden administration inserted a tempting carrot into recent legislation which would provide close to $1.7 billion to North Carolina over the coming years in exchange for expanding Medicaid, the state- and federally funded health care program. 

Cooper pointed to people who would benefit from the move, such as child care center owner Cassandra Brooks who has facilities in Clayton and Garner. 

“Cassandra had a friend and a coworker die from a stroke when she could not afford treatment for her high blood pressure,” Cooper said. “She has seen people without health insurance get sick with COVID-19 and not be able to get the care they needed. One in five child care workers don’t have health insurance.”

Cooper said that expanding Medicaid would achieve goals agreed upon by a health care council that he convened over the winter that included some Republican lawmakers, business owners, and health care and insurance providers. 

“It uses tax dollars wisely and reduces health care costs for businesses. It makes health care more fair. It reaches rural areas,” he said. “Let’s make a deal.”

Stamp out systemic racism

Cooper said the state must confront and fix systemic racism that has plagued North Carolina for centuries and led to poorer health outcomes for people of color.

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North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper delivers his State of the State address before a joint session of the North Carolina House and Senate on Monday, April 26, 2021 in Raleigh, N.C. N.C. Pool photo by Robert Willett/ News & Observer

 “We must face head-on the stark reality of systemic racism, and how it hurts people and leaves them behind — who gets to see a doctor, who gets hired for a job, who gets charged with a crime, who gets prison time, who gets killed,” Cooper said.

Late last week, an Elizabeth City Black man died after Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputies opened fire while serving drug-related arrest warrants on him while he was in his car in his driveway, according to his family’s account after seeing 20 seconds of law enforcement body camera footage on Monday.

Many questions remain about how and why Andrew Brown Jr.’s life ended as it did.

“Over the past year, and just in the past week, we’ve seen the ​harm suffered by too many people of color in our state and across the country,” Cooper said. Some of that harm included a disparate number of Latino and Black residents of the state stricken and dying from COVID. 

 “We must all stand together to stop racial injustice in North Carolina,” Cooper added. “In all the areas that are important for people’s success — health care, education, economic strength, the justice system — we must confront systems that favor some and harm others and we must fix them.”

Finding common ground

Cooper acknowledged past stalemates between him and the Republicans leading the state House and Senate that led to unorthodox spending plans for the past two years. 

The state budget process ended in a stalemate in 2019, after the governor refused to sign a budget without Medicaid expansion as part of the spending plan. Republican legislators instead sent Cooper a bevy of “mini-budgets” which got most of the state’s budgeting accomplished, but froze overall spending at 2018 levels while not accomplishing Cooper’s stated goal of getting more people health care coverage. 

The crisis of the pandemic, however, forced the two camps together. 

The governor highlighted how they came to an agreement more recently to compromise on legislation they all could buy into to reopen North Carolina’s school districts to in-person learning.

He mentioned lawmakers’ bills that allocated federal aid during the pandemic that he signed into law.

When he sent over his recommended spending plan for the coming two years, Cooper again called for a spirit of compromise.

“There are some really good ideas in there,” Cooper said with a smile. “There’s going to have to be some give and take in order for us to get this done. I don’t want to have to veto the budget, and I will do my part to see that we have a budget and I expect you to do yours. And I want to see a budget that has three signatures — Speaker Moore’s, Senator Berger’s, and mine. Our people deserve it.”

Tim Moore, the Kings Mountain Republican who has been Speaker of the House since 2015, provided the GOP response to Cooper’s state of the state. It’s clear that not everything on the governor’s wish list is going to be met with bipartisan enthusiasm.

Differing philosophies

“We all want North Carolina to be a place where people can have good jobs, safe homes, and provide their children with the very best educational opportunities,” Moore said. “We may have very different views on how to achieve those goals. But I and my fellow Republicans intend to try and find as much common ground as possible. In North Carolina, we’re not afraid of our differences. Rather, we view our differences as a part of the rich fabric of our great state as we work together to move North Carolina forward.”

shows a man in a suit and tie standing in front of a podium, looking at the camera after Cooper's address. There's a large brass medallion on the wall behind him
Speaker Tim Moore (R-Kings Mountain) from the House of Representatives gave the Republican response to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s State of the State address Monday night. Screen capture courtesy: PBS NC

Cooper and Moore said North Carolina is in a good position to emerge from the pandemic stronger.

Moore said that was because Republicans had cut taxes and reduced spending while in the majority since 2012, amassing a surplus that Cooper wants to dip into the reserves to fund some of the proposals in his budget.

“One major area of disagreement between the governor and Republicans is how to handle the good fortune of this major budget surplus,” Moore said. “While the governor will push for large increases in state programs, bureaucracy and spending, we know that this is a recipe for unsustainable budgeting that will eventually lead to painful cuts or tax hikes in the near future.”

Republicans, like Cooper, want to invest in rural broadband access, which became so vital for school and health care access during the pandemic, along with water and sewer infrastructure and roads, bridges and highway building. They also support a summer school program for children, many of whom have been in remote learning situations for much of the past year.

Republicans and Democrats will have to work hard together, Moore said. “And we won’t always agree on the best way to do things. But I assure you that we all agree we want North Carolina to be the very best it can be.”

Dentist in face mask and shield gives a shot to a female patient

You can get a COVID-19 vaccine at this dentist’s offices

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You can get a COVID-19 vaccine at this dentist’s offices - North Carolina Health News

Michael Riccobene is offering the Moderna vaccine to his patients

By Anne Blythe

Michael Riccobene is a dentist on a mission to stress the importance of recognizing that dental care and oral health play a large part in overall well-being.

So when Gov. Roy Cooper added dentists to the list of professions eligible to administer COVID-19 vaccines, Riccobene wanted to play a part in the goal of getting at least 75 to 80 percent of North Carolinians vaccinated.

Now he is. 

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In March, Riccobene, founder of Riccobene Associates Family Dentistry, began researching the possibility of offering vaccines inside some of the 36 offices that his practice has across the state.

In addition to the hours of training required by the North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners, Riccobene also had to enter an agreement for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to have access to the vaccines.

Then he had to buy freezers to store the Moderna vaccines that he has been administering in Goldsboro and Cary during the past week. That was not a simple task since many of the companies offering them have low supplies.

Riccobene was able to buy seven freezers, at nearly $2,200 each, that he will strategically place across his practice.

The dentist’s original plan was to call on patients on the schedule for routine cleanings or drillings and fillings each week and ask if they wanted a vaccine at their appointments.

There were not enough takers, so he shifted gears at the Goldsboro office where he began the vaccinations.

Riccobene sent out an email blast to all his patients in the Goldsboro area and got the response he was seeking. On Thursday and Friday, the Goldsboro office administered more than 50 Moderna vaccines, about five vials each with between 10 and 11 doses.

Man in personal protective gear stands beside dark-haired woman wearing a pink face mask
Michael Riccobene, founder of Riccobene Associates Family Dentistry, offers COVID vaccines in his dental offices. Courtesty of Riccobene Associates Family Dentistry

“I didn’t want to open a vial and not be able to use all the vaccine,” Riccobene said.

This week, an email blast went out to patients in the Cary office and a robust response came back from people willing to come in and get a shot.

“They’re comfortable coming to us,” Riccobene said.

Riccobene has medical supplies on hand for use in any rare cases of allergic reaction to the vaccine. A medical provider also is on call.

Expanding vaccine scope?

Dentists in other states have been administering vaccines inside their offices, as well.

There has been a push by some organizations and oral health advocates to give dentists authority to inoculate their patients against seasonal flu and HPV, a shift that would require changes to North Carolina’s scope of practice laws.

Many people visit a dentist once or twice a year but might not visit a doctor’s office during that time. The American Dental Association Health Policy Institute estimates that nearly 9 percent of Americans are part of that trend.

“As dental professionals, we are here to do our part and battle this COVID virus,” Riccobene said in a statement when announcing he would be administering vaccines. “We all want to get rid of this virus.”

In Indian Trail, a Union County town about 10 miles from Charlotte, a dentist and pharmacist have teamed up to administer COVID-19 vaccines in the Indian Trail Dental Studio.

Hasmi Patel, owner of the dental studio, is married to Harry Patel, who owns Austin Drugs in nearby Monroe.

Throughout the pandemic, the couple has reached out to the community around them, creating and delivering handmade cloth masks with medicines to homebound seniors.

Because he did not have enough space in his pharmacy to administer COVID-19 vaccines, the Patels sought permission from the state to administer them in the dental office after typical business hours.

They got permission in February.

“We’ve always wanted to give back,” Patel said.

In a telephone interview this week, Patel said that he’s helped organize two vaccine events in a county that has many COVID-19 skeptics and residents unwilling to follow the mask mandate and social distancing restrictions.

Nonetheless, the events he stages inside his wife’s new office building draw people who are anxious to move beyond the pandemic.

“The people that came in just want to get past this,” Patel said. “We’ve got scattered people that want it.”

Even so, Patel had trouble getting all 300 doses that were shipped to him into arms. Because of that, he paired up with pharmacies that were scheduled to administer the Johnson & Johnson vaccine before the pause.

“Rather than these go to waste we reached out to local pharmacies so we could get them to them,” Patel said.

‘Gateway to offering other vaccines’

About 37 percent of the North Carolina population that’s 18 and older were fully vaccinated by 11:59 p.m. April 21, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services vaccine dashboard.

Anybody who is 16 or older is eligible for the Pfizer COVID vaccine. The Moderna vaccine is approved for emergency use for anyone 18 and older.

The single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been on hold since April 13, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration recommended a pause. The suspension was suggested after cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, a rare blood clotting condition, was reported in six women, ages 18 to 49, who had received the vaccine six to 13 days before the diagnosis.

The advisory committees that reviewed the data two days after the pause are slated to meet on April 23 to continue the discussion.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, has said he does not expect the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to be fully set aside.

On Sunday, Fauci told Chuck Todd of NBC’s “Meet the Press” that though he did not know what the advisory board’s recommendation would be, there might be “some sort of warning or restriction or risk assessment.”

“I don’t think it’s just going to go back and say, ‘Okay, everything’s fine, go right back,’” Fauci said. “I think it’ll likely say, ‘Okay, we’re going to use it. But be careful under these certain circumstances.’”

The pause and any restart of the vaccine could lead to hesitancy among some at a time in North Carolina when the demand for vaccines seems to be waning as more doses are available.

This week, the governor offered an enticement for the hesitant and those who know somebody who has yet to get a shot: If two-thirds of the adult population are vaccinated by June 1, most of the restrictions that have curbed activities throughout the pandemic can be lifted.

Dentists might be able to help get to that goal, Riccobene says, especially if they have supplies on hand and reach out to patients who don’t have a primary care doctor but have built a rapport with their oral health care provider.

Battling false claims

Riccobene has seen hesitancy among his employees. Only 50 percent of his staff are vaccinated against COVID-19, he said.

Many of those who are hesitant are women of childbearing age. Some have bought into claims circulating online that vaccines lead to infertility, assertions that are not supported by the CDC.

Riccobene, who was making plans on Monday to get vaccines to staff in offices near the Cary site, tried to put the issue into context.

“The thing that I don’t understand is are they not afraid of the effects that COVID could have on their bodies,” Riccobene said.

Just this week, a study published in JAMA that followed more than 2,100 pregnant women found that those who contracted COVID were more likely to get sick, be hospitalized, and were much more likely to die than pregnant women who had not contracted the virus. The pregnant women with COVID were also more than twice as likely to have pregnancy complications, including eclampsia  preterm birth, than women who had not contracted COVID.

“If you are trying to become pregnant now or want to get pregnant in the future, you may receive a COVID-19 vaccine when one is available to you,” CDC guidance states. “There is currently no evidence that any vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines, cause fertility problems. CDC does not recommend routine pregnancy testing before COVID-19 vaccination. If you are trying to become pregnant, you do not need to avoid pregnancy after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. Like all vaccines, scientists are studying COVID-19 vaccines carefully for side effects now and will report findings as they become available.”

Over time, Riccobene and others getting vaccinated in the dental offices hope to change the minds of some of those who are hesitant. He also hopes that vaccinations at dental offices might outlive the pandemic.

“I see this as a gateway to being able to offer other vaccines,” Riccobene said.

Image shows young people with glasses of wine and sparklers smiling and celebrating. the text reads: Bring summer back to North Carolina, Get a safe, effective and free COVID-10 vaccine and help others do the same.

Coronavirus Today – Apr. 21 — Most COVID restrictions to be lifted in June if two-thirds of adults are vaccinated

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Coronavirus Today – Apr. 21 — Most COVID restrictions to be lifted in June if two-thirds of adults are vaccinated - North Carolina Health News

Gov. Roy Cooper dangles a carrot for the vaccine hesitant. Keep those masks around, though.

By Anne Blythe

As the demand for COVID-19 vaccines slows in many counties, Gov. Roy Cooper and his public health team have offered an inducement for the unvaccinated and all who have friends and family who haven’t gotten a shot yet.

When the state gets two-thirds of the adult population vaccinated, he said, many of the restrictions that have altered life for more than a year could become relics of the past.

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During a briefing with reporters on Wednesday, Cooper suggested that day could come as soon as June 1, while stressing that masks will still be necessary for some activities into the summer.

“With at least two-thirds of adults vaccinated, our public health officials believe we’ll have enough protection to begin to put the pandemic behind us,” Cooper said. “We now have an adequate supply of vaccines, so we need everybody to step up.”

Nearly 36 percent of the North Carolina population 18 and older has been fully vaccinated, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services vaccine dashboard. Nearly 77 percent of the population that is 65 and older has had at least one vaccine dose and 71 percent are fully vaccinated.

“That’s great news,” Cooper said. “But we must keep going strong.”

North Carolina has seen a slight uptick over the past week in the number of people hospitalized with disease related to COVID-19. That number had dropped below 1,000 in late March and early April. On Tuesday, there were 1,168 people hospitalized and 285 were in ICU beds.

The positivity rate of COVID-19 tests also has inched up to nearly 6 percent, higher than the 5-percent benchmark that public health officials set as the goal.

“As we work on vaccinations, we need to keep our COVID trends, such as cases and hospitalizations stable,” Cooper said. “We need to keep being careful and responsible to keep those trends down and save lives. I believe we can.”

Children younger than 16 are not eligible for any of the vaccines approved for emergency use. At summer camps, schools and other activities, masks and other safety measures will be incorporated into programs.

Masks and other safety recommendations also are likely to be required past June at large indoor gatherings for adults, too.

“Although we’re making progress we haven’t beaten COVID-19 yet and the virus will still be with us even after June the first,” Cooper said. “Vaccines are the key to us moving forward.”

Bring back summer

That’s why state Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen announced a new “Bringing Summer Back” get out the vaccine campaign.

During two weeks in May and two weeks in June, organizations will rally together across the state to promote vaccination.

“If we can get at least two-thirds of all adults vaccinated, we can get back to the summer activities we all love, like backyard gatherings with family and friends, public fireworks, outdoor festivals or parades, all without wearing masks outside,” Cohen said. “I know my daughters want summer back and so do I.”

Until then, Cohen urged people to continue wearing face masks in public and getting tested for COVID-19. Even people who have been vaccinated and have coronavirus symptoms later should get tested, Cohen added.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that a small number of people who have received vaccines have nonetheless had “breakthrough cases” of COVID at a rate of about 8 cases per 100,000 vaccinated people.

“We are at an exciting moment,” Cohen said. “We now have enough vaccine for everyone. Supply is strong and stable. It’s widely available and in most places, you don’t have to wait or need an appointment.”

Tough row to hoe

Getting to that two-thirds goal by June 1 might not be an easy task.

In North Carolina, according to an April 19 report posted on Carolina Demography’s website, 29 percent of adult North Carolinians who responded to a U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey from March 17 to March 29 were hesitant to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

Thirty-six percent of North Carolinians ages 25 to 39 were vaccine hesitant, according to the survey. Thirty-five percent of those surveyed ages 40 to 54 were vaccine hesitant and 29 percent of those ages 55 to 64 expressed hesitancy.

Men were more likely than women, 32 percent to 27 percent, to be vaccine hesitant. Thirty-nine percent of the Black respondents were hesitant to get a vaccine, as were 33 percent of the Hispanic respondents compared to only 26 percent of the white respondents.

Nearly half of the respondents who expressed hesitancy said they were concerned about possible side effects. Forty percent said they planned to wait and see if the vaccines were safe.

Taking vaccines to the people

During a Zoom call on Wednesday with a Partnership for a Healthy Durham, a coalition of community members and local organizations, Rod Jenkins, director of the Durham County public health department, discussed some of the tactical shifts his department has been making to combat hesitancy.

Only weeks ago, it was difficult to get a spot for a shot in Durham County and elsewhere. Now vaccine event organizers are having difficulty staging medium to large clinics because of lack of demand. 

“My counterparts in other counties, be it Forsyth, Guilford, Wake County, they’re now beginning to explore the idea of demobilizing their mass sites, because of the fact that scheduling for vaccinations have become a tad bit soft,” Jenkins said. “Really to stand up that kind of apparatus is very labor- and staff-intensive.”

The strategy now is moving toward going out into the community, taking vaccines to the pockets of people who are either hesitant or face barriers to getting to more traveled sites.

Mobile vaccine clinics that have been out and about in Durham in recent days have met hesitancy, too, especially since the pause on administering the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine.

The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that vaccine administrators stop using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine until advisory boards could review six cases of rare blood clots in women.

There has yet to be a recommendation to resume use of the vaccine. That move could come soon with possible warning labels or restrictions on who should receive the vaccine, public health officials have said.

Nonetheless, public health advocates continue to push vaccines as the tool that can put the pandemic in the rearview mirror.

“We are really employing a strategy of really going to where the need is as opposed to having just a different stand-up clinic,” Jenkins said.

Coronavirus by the numbers

According to NCDHHS data, as of Wednesday afternoon:

  • 12,480 people total in North Carolina have died of coronavirus.
  • 952,529 have been diagnosed with the disease. Of those, 1,168 are in the hospital. The hospitalization figure is a snapshot of people hospitalized with COVID-19 infections on a given day and does not represent all of the North Carolinians who may have been in the hospital throughout the course of the epidemic.
  • 911,719 people who had COVID-19 are presumed to have recovered. This weekly estimate does not denote how many of the diagnosed cases in the state are still infectious. Nor does it reflect the number of so-called “long-haul” survivors of COVID who continue to feel the effects of the disease beyond the defined “recovery” period.
  • To date, 12,021,825 tests have been completed in North Carolina. As of July 7, 2020, all labs in the state are required to report both their positive and negative test results to the lab, so that figure includes all of the COVID-19 tests performed in the state.
  • People ages 25-49 make up the largest group of cases (39 percent). While 15 percent of the positive diagnoses were in people ages 65 and older, seniors make up 83 percent of coronavirus deaths in the state. 
  • 254 outbreaks are ongoing in group facilities across the state, including nursing homes and correctional and residential care facilities.
  • As of Tuesday, 285 coronavirus patients were in intensive care units across the state.
  • As of April 21, 6,594,886 North Carolinians have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine.
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Coronavirus Today – April 13 — North Carolina recommends a temporary halt on Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine.

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Coronavirus Today – April 13 — North Carolina recommends a temporary halt on Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine. - North Carolina Health News

As the CDC and FDA pause administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, public health leaders call the events “extremely rare.”

By Anne Blythe

The Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine has been a shot that many people have been drawn to because it offers one-and-done protection from COVID-19 as the global coronavirus pandemic continues into a second year.

Then, in yet another of the endless twists and turns delivered by the coronavirus pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration suggested on Tuesday that vaccine providers temporarily suspend administration of the vaccine, which was developed by Belgian vaccine-maker Janssen, a subsidiary of pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson. 

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North Carolina public health officials learned of the federal government’s recommendation to pause at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday and immediately got the word out to vaccine administrators.

“Today’s actions are the results of a vaccine safety system that is working,” Mandy Cohen, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, told reporters during a briefing later in the day.

What led to the pause were reports of a rare kind of blood clot found in six women ranging in age from 18 to 48 who had received the vaccine six to 13 days before detection of the cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, or CVST, as the uncommon clots are called.

Those clots were discovered in combination with low platelet counts in the women, further complicating treatment.

Though the incidents represent only six cases from the 6.8 million doses of Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccine administered across the United States, one woman died and another was in critical condition on Tuesday morning, according to Peter Marks, director of the FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

“What we are talking about today is an incredibly rare event, literally one in a million,” Cohen said.

Nonetheless, the CDC has asked the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, ACIP, to meet on Wednesday and delve deeper into the cases and the significance of the adverse effects. The FDA will review the committee’s analysis and look into the incidents on its own.

“Right now, I’d like to stress, these events seem to be extremely rare,” Janet Woodcock, the acting FDA Commissioner, said in a joint media call with Marks and Anne Schuchat, a CDC principal deputy director.

What to look for

People who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine more than three weeks ago should have no cause for concern at this point, Cohen said.

“If you have recently had the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and you are feeling well, you don’t need to do anything right now and you should not be concerned,” Cohen said. “If you are someone who has had Johnson & Johnson within the last three weeks, and after day three of the vaccine, you develop a severe headache, severe abdominal pain, difficulty breathing, leg pain, then you should be calling your doctor or other health care provider and let them know you are having those symptoms and to let them know you had the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.”

Cohen, who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on March 5, said her arm was sore afterward and she experienced fatigue and felt achy overall. 

Such side effects are typical with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, as well as the two-dose Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

Part of the reason to take a break in administering the Johnson & Johnson, Cohen and other public health leaders say, is to get the word out to health care workers that such anticoagulants and blood thinners typically used on other, more common types of clots, could be dangerous for people with cerebral venous sinus thrombosis.

“This is a way that we want to make sure that our providers have a high degree of suspicion if they are seeing someone with a clot and with low platelets that they should be asking about vaccine history and making sure to put these pieces together to say, ‘Hey, this blood clot is not like a typical blood clot and probably needs to be treated differently,’” Cohen said. “In this case, this is a kind of clot that is associated with low platelets and you don’t want to be using an anticoagulant called heparin in this case. You need to be using other treatments, so that is something we’re making sure to communicate to providers.”

Shifting gears

The announcement comes as North Carolina is seeing supplies of COVID-19 vaccines beginning to be greater than the demand for shots in some counties.

North Carolina has administered 242,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. By shortly before midnight on April 12, nearly 31 percent of the state population 18 and older had been fully vaccinated.

When North Carolina hit the pause button, there were 85,000 first doses of Pfizer and Moderna shots held over from the previous week that will be distributed quickly to providers, according to Amanda Fuller Moore, the pharmacist for the DHHS Division of Public Health.

Those will be sent to vaccine administrators in the coming week, as will new shipments from the federal government of Moderna and Pfizer doses expected in the next few days.

Vaccine providers who had been planning to administer Johnson & Johnson doses have been asked by the state to reach out to those who had appointments. Some have Moderna and Pfizer doses that they can provide instead. Others will have to reschedule appointments for some who might have wanted the one-shot vaccine because they have a fear of needles.

Shaping the message

David Wohl, an infectious disease specialist at the UNC Chapel Hill medical school, and Cameron Wolfe, an infectious disease specialist at Duke University, spoke with reporters over Zoom on Tuesday about their takes on the CDC and FDA decisions.

As Cohen did, they described the news as evidence of the vaccine safety system working and continued to tout the importance of getting people vaccinated as expeditiously as possible.

“The events of the last day really reflect the vigilance that we have in our systems,” Wohl said. “We have a safety net for reasons. There’s scrutiny and monitoring for adverse events and the system is working for us.”

Health care providers are encouraged to report any adverse event that occurs after the administration of a vaccine even if it is not clear that it is tied to the inoculation to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

“It’s actually reassuring that such a rare signal can filter through the noise of vaccinating so many people and be detected,” Wolfe said. “One of the things I think it is worth us remembering up front is that all of these vaccines, because of the nature of the pandemic, are all under emergency use authorization. And yet true to each medication or vaccine that will be ultimately approved, there’s always going to be the chance for random adverse side effects to appear outside of clinical trials and we need robust systems in place to be able to find those.

“Here you’ve, in fact, got a signal that we need to know more about quite frankly, and probably will in the next couple of days about a rare incident of a clotting problem.”

Similarities to AstraZeneca

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is an adenovirus vector vaccine, which means it uses a modified version of a different virus to transmit instructions to cells to produce a spike protein. When the cell displays the spike protein, that triggers an immune system response that protects against future infection of COVID-19.

Unlike older-style vaccines which included weakened viruses, this vaccine does not contain any form or part of the coronavirus itself.

The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine also uses a modified adenovirus to deliver genetic material coding to the cells so a spike protein can be created.

The United States has not approved AstraZeneca’s vaccine for emergency use in this country, but shots have been administered in Europe.

Blood clots have been reported as adverse events after administration of the AstraZeneca shot as well, leading some countries to restrict who is eligible for the vaccine.

That will be further researched, Wohl and Wolfe said, while also acknowledging the importance of keeping the adverse event in context and tamping down those reluctant to trust the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.

“Maybe the greatest side effect of what we’ll see from this is maybe more hesitancy or more skepticism,” Wohl said. “I do think we have to try to control that. There very well may be people saying, ‘See, I told you so, there’s problems.’ But really put this in context.”

‘We don’t throw away penicillin’

What has been shown, Wohl says, is that all three vaccines work, that they prevent people from dying and getting seriously ill from COVID-19.

Furthermore, Wohl said, people experience adverse effects from other vaccines and medications that don’t necessarily put them on the shelf forever.

“We have people who react seriously to penicillin,” Wohl said. “We don’t throw away penicillin. Penicillin is very, very useful as an antibody. It saves lives even though some people can get a reaction to penicillin. So we have tools. We have to understand how to use them. Sometimes they’re a little double-edged, but the vast benefits of these vaccines so far really, really outweigh any risk there is.”

In a statement released on April 13, Johnson & Johnson stated that the safety and well-being of people who use the company’s products is of utmost importance.

In addition to awaiting the findings from CDC and FDA, the company has been reviewing its cases with European health authorities and decided to delay the rollout of the J&J/Janssen COVID-19 vaccine in Europe.

“We have been working closely with medical experts and health authorities, and we strongly support the open communication of this information to healthcare professionals and the public,” according to the statement posted on the company’s website.

Johnson & Johnson has seen a spate of publicity recently that has caused some concern among those trying to combat vaccine hesitancy.

In late March, the company announced that a quality control process done at Emergent Biosolutions, a Baltimore site where the vaccines will be manufactured, detected a batch of drug substance that did not meet standards. The review process found the problem before any doses had been distributed, resulting in another refrain from public health leaders that the safety network was working.

Then last week, North Carolina briefly paused administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at a mass clinic in Wake County and a couple of others in Orange County after several incidents of fainting were reported.

Colorado reported similar events.

Wohl speculated at the time, and said again on Tuesday, that he thought those adverse reactions were tied to people who have needle anxiety. Now, Wohl, Wolfe and others offer people with a fear of needles an opportunity to get their shot in a reclining chair.

The CDC reviewed the incidents and declared last week that it was safe to resume administration of the single-shot vaccine. If such a declaration is made after the investigation into the clotting events so soon after the fainting episodes, it could be challenging to get buy-in from some.

“Does the optics of that happening within the space of a week make it challenging?” Wolfe said. “Yeah. That’s why we want to make sure that messaging is as accurate as you can [make it].”

Coronavirus by the numbers

According to NCDHHS data, as of Tuesday afternoon:

  • 12,173 people total in North Carolina have died of coronavirus.
  • 936,425 have been diagnosed with the disease. Of those, 1,032 are in the hospital. The hospitalization figure is a snapshot of people hospitalized with COVID-19 infections on a given day and does not represent all of the North Carolinians who may have been in the hospital throughout the course of the epidemic.
  • 887,724 people who had COVID-19 are presumed to have recovered. This weekly estimate does not denote how many of the diagnosed cases in the state are still infectious. Nor does it reflect the number of so-called “long-haul” survivors of COVID who continue to feel the effects of the disease beyond the defined “recovery” period.
  • To date, 11,749,277 tests have been completed in North Carolina. As of July 7, 2020, all labs in the state are required to report both their positive and negative test results to the lab, so that figure includes all of the COVID-19 tests performed in the state.
  • People ages 25-49 make up the largest group of cases (39 percent). While 15 percent of the positive diagnoses were in people ages 65 and older, seniors make up 83 percent of coronavirus deaths in the state. 
  • 289 outbreaks are ongoing in group facilities across the state, including nursing homes and correctional and residential care facilities.
  • As of Tuesday, 257 COVID-19 patients were in intensive care units across the state.
  • As of April 12, 5,965,026 North Carolinians have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine.
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