HOPE program

shows two people, both wearing masks to stop transmission of COVID, the women in this photo is in the foreground and out of focus

Coronavirus Today – Dec. 30 Which COVID-19 vaccine phase are you in?; If you’re 75 and older, a shot might be available in January; Eviction moratorium extended

December 30, 2020 by Anne Blythe

Coronavirus Today – Dec. 30 Which COVID-19 vaccine phase are you in?; If you’re 75 and older, a shot might be available in January; Eviction moratorium extended - North Carolina Health News

North Carolina adds more details to the COVID-19 equitable vaccine distribution plan, cautions against violating prioritizations.

By Anne Blythe

Now that the first doses of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines have arrived in North Carolina and immunizations have started, the state distribution plan has been updated to better ensure that favoritism and financial means play no part in who gets the doses.

Five days before Christmas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices updated its interim prioritization recommendations to give more specifics about who the vaccine should be offered to in Phase 1b.

Now, as 2020 comes to a close and 2021 brings the promises of vaccines, Gov. Roy Cooper and Mandy Cohen, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, held their final briefing for the year, the last of more than 110 such briefings in 2020.

To close out the year, they spoke mostly about vaccine distribution.

In Phase 1a of the distribution plan, which is underway in North Carolina, COVID-19 vaccines are available to health care workers on the frontlines in wards and emergency rooms where there are interactions with people sickened by the virus. As more supplies come in, other health care workers will be prioritized, too.

Residents and staff in long-term care facilities and nursing homes also are in the initial phase of immunizations. Those vaccinations began this week with CVS and Walgreens administering the two-dose Moderna vaccine through a federal distribution program.

Nursing home residents have made up 47 percent of the deaths in North Carolina, even as they’re only about 6 percent of the cases.

As happens with many large-scale operations with only two weeks of on-the-ground experience, there has been confusion about how to define essential workers and what to do if a large health care system receives more doses of vaccine in a week than the number of people who step forward for a shot.

“To save lives and slow the spread of COVID-19, the first phases focus on protecting health care workers caring for patients with COVID-19, protecting people who are at the highest risk for being hospitalized or dying, and protecting those at highest risk to exposure of COVID-19,” Cohen said.

Most of the hospitals started receiving their first shipments of vaccines two weeks ago. County health departments began to get vaccines just last week.

“The early data suggests that there still is work to be done to make sure they’re being distributed equitably,” Cohen said.

Atrium Health received a call from Cohen recently after a worker on the communications team, not a medical worker, posted to social media that she and her husband were scheduled to receive the vaccine on Jan. 5.

“When we heard about the Atrium situation our team reached out to their team,” Cohen said. “They were very receptive and adjusted their process going forward, which we appreciated.

“We are very serious about folks following the state’s prioritization. We are updating it today so now folks have clear guidance from us going forward.”

In anticipation of potential problems in the months ahead as the state moves through additional phases, Cohen and Cooper are looking into whether medical, nursing and other health care licensing boards have rules in place to penalize those who do not comply with the distribution plan or perhaps pushing for new legislation.

“We can’t have folks jumping the line or having their family members, board members, donors jumping the line, and importantly [we] cannot see folks profiting financially,” Cohen said. “These vaccines are free. They are meant to be free for those who are getting that vaccine and if we see folks who are trying to profit financially from that, that will not be tolerated.”

Cooper said he spoke with legislators on Wednesday morning to discuss possible legislation that could also establish penalties for such deviance.

When is my shot at a shot?

In Phase 1b, which Cohen said she expected to begin by Jan. 11, possibly earlier, will make the vaccines available to people 75 and older, as well as frontline essential workers. Under the CDC definition that includes first responders, firefighters, police, teachers, child care workers, school staff, grocery store workers, food and agriculture workers, grocery store workers and U.S. postal workers.

Group 1 in Phase 1b includes anyone who is 75 or older even if they do not have a chronic health condition.
Group 2 includes health care and frontline essential workers who are at least 50 years old.
Group 3 includes frontline workers and health care workers of any age, even if they do not work directly with COVID-19 patients.

Phase 2 of the vaccine distribution plan includes adults at high risk for exposure and with conditions that make them at risk for severe illness.

Group 1 in that phase is anyone from 65 to 74 years old.
Group 2 is for anyone 16 to 64 with a medical condition that puts them at risk of severe illness from the virus.
Group 3 includes anyone incarcerated in the state’s prisons or jails or living in other group homes who have not been vaccinated in the earlier phases.

Phase 3 includes college, university and high school students who are at least 16 years old.

Phase 4 opens vaccine distribution to everyone else, an opportunity that Cohen does not expect to happen until at least late spring.

Even with a more detailed plan, Cohen and Cooper expect that questions will continue to arise about whether someone is in an eligible group.

“As this process unfolds operationally on the ground, I know that we will be making some decisions and adjustments as we go,” Cooper said. “There are difficult decisions that are going to have to be made at the local level. We want them to stay within the guidelines as much as they possibly can.”

“We’ll provide help in providing descriptions to them as to precisely who fits in the category,” Cooper added. “But these are broad categories and there are going to have to be some decisions made at the local level by people administering this vaccine as to whether someone falls into the category or not.”

The governor already is getting pushback on the distribution plan from Senate leader Phil Berger, a Republican from Eden.

“I don’t think anybody objects to providing the first vaccines to frontline health workers and people above 75 years old,” Berger, 68, said in a statement posted to Senator Berger Press Shop. He said he had concerns about putting college students ahead of some seniors, including those in their 60s.

“I understand the concern that college students spread the virus — but the whole basis for that concern is they spread the virus to older people who might die,” Berger added. “We should vaccinate those older people first.”

Overcoming systemic racial injustices

In addition to making sure vaccine administrators follow the distribution plan, the state also is working to build trust in communities of color where there have been long standing health care disparities.

The DHHS dashboard shows that among the 63,571 people in North Carolina who received the vaccine from Dec. 14 to Dec. 28, 80 percent of them were white. Sixty percent were between the ages of 25 and 49, while only 6 percent were 65 or older.

“There is work to do here to make sure that we are distributing vaccines equitably,” Cohen said. “There is an unfortunate longstanding history of racial injustice that is built into our medical system and we need to make sure that we are proactively trying to overcome that from the beginning.”

Cohen cautioned anyone looking at the early vaccine distribution data that it only represents one week’s worth of numbers.

Nonetheless, she said the state is working with leaders in communities of color, faith leaders and others to try to tamp down vaccine hesitancy that could lead to COVID-19 circulating through populations that already have suffered disproportionately from the virus during the pandemic.

“That is why we are working closely with partners that are community-based organizations from our historically marginalized populations, working closely with members of the General Assembly and other leaders from the faith community who represent communities, to make sure they are getting good information about the vaccine so they can make informed decisions for them and their family,” Cohen said. “We want to make sure folks know that this vaccine is safe. It has been tested in clinical trials. It is effective. It is 95 percent effective. You cannot get COVID from the vaccine itself.”

‘Very, very worried’

As Cohen and Cooper rolled out the updated vaccine distribution plan, they cautioned that North Carolina is on the precipice of even more dire times.

North Carolina has had 532,830 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic and 6,729 deaths related to the virus.

On Wednesday, as many people returned from Christmas travels, there were 8,551 new cases reported. There are record numbers of people in the hospital with serious illness related to COVID-19 — 3,339 on Wednesday, up from 2,023 on Dec. 1.

Intensive care units also have a record number of people battling fiercely for their lives inside them, according to Cohen. Now there are 768 people in those ICU beds. On Dec. 1, that number was only 454.

“I’m very, very worried,” Cohen said.

With such critical spread, the White House Coronavirus Task Force issued a strong admonishment to North Carolinians who are 65 and older or have an underlying health condition such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, autoimmune disease and respiratory illness.

“The task force cautions that these people should not enter any indoor space where people aren’t wearing masks and recommends having groceries and medicines delivered to avoid having exposure,” Cooper said. “The recommendation stresses that gatherings of people not wearing masks, public or private, simply are not safe.

“That’s how prevalent this virus is right now.”

Additionally, Cohen said, the White House task force warned that anyone under 40 who gathered with someone outside their immediate household over the Christmas holiday needs to assume they have COVID-19 even if they do not have symptoms.

“The task force warns that you are dangerous to others and must isolate away from anybody with increased risk for severe disease and get yourself tested,” Cohen said.

Extended eviction moratorium

North Carolina soon will get more federal assistance to continue its fight against COVID-19 in the months ahead as vaccines are distributed.

The federal stimulus package was approved by Congress last week and signed by President Donald Trump over the weekend.

“Fortunately help from Washington is finally on the way,” Cooper said. “Over the weekend, the president signed legislation that provides funding for vaccine distribution, schools, direct payments to individuals, help for small businesses and hospitals. It includes a badly needed extension of federal unemployment assistance and direct payments to families that qualify.”

The federal package also includes funding for rental assistance. Cooper said North Carolina expects to receive about $700 million for that purpose.

“When North Carolina receives these resources, I plan to work with the General Assembly to help disperse it quickly and effectively,” Cooper said.

Cooper signed an executive order this week that extends a moratorium on evictions through the end of January.

Additionally, he plans to reopen the state’s Housing Opportunities and Prevention of Evictions (HOPE) Program, through which North Carolinians suffering financial hardships can get assistance paying their rental and utility bills.

Nearly 3 million adults in North Carolina have reported difficulty in covering their usual household expenses, according to the governor’s office. Some 485,000 residents have reported being behind on rent payments.

Through the HOPE program, nearly 21,000 renters have been notified that they will receive financial assistance, notices that add up to nearly $37.4 million.

“Too many families are living on the edge, trying to do the right thing, but left with impossible choices,” Cooper said when announcing the order. “This order will help them stay in their homes, which is essential to slowing the spread of the virus.”

Nursing home residents continue to die from COVID

The novel coronavirus has infected some of the state’s skilled nursing facilities more than once — with 314 outbreaks reported among the state’s 427 nursing homes.

As of the state’s most recent count, on Christmas Eve, there were 19 new cases of COVID in three of the four State Veterans Nursing Homes, where 38 older veterans have died of the disease during 2020. In late November, the state Veterans Affairs Commission said the management of the homes should remain in the hands of PruittHealth, the Georgia-based company that has run the facilities for 22 years.

In addition, six nursing homes in the most recent DHHS outbreak report recorded 20 or more deaths from COVID. (Because the Department of Health and Human Services clears cases and deaths from its online database when conditions improve at nursing homes, overall COVID deaths at specific homes may exceed the levels listed here).

Among those currently listed with 20 or more deaths is the Stanley Total Living Center with 111 cases and 25 deaths. The facility is a continuing care retirement community, with residents who are independent, some who require only assisted living and some skilled nursing patients. DHHS lists these cases as having occurred in the skilled nursing portion of the facility.

Other facilities with more than 20 deaths in the most recent report include Peak Resources in Alamance County with 104 cases and 22 deaths; White Oak Manor in Kings Mountain, with 192 cases and 24 deaths; Edgecombe Health and Rehabilitation, in Tarboro, with 120 cases and 22 deaths; the Dan E and Mary Louise Steward Health Center in Wake County with 146 cases and 20 deaths and Universal Health Care/Oxford, with 153 cases and 21 deaths.

Coronavirus by the numbers

According to NCDHHS data, as of Wednesday afternoon:

6,729 people total in North Carolina have died of coronavirus.
532,830 have been diagnosed with the disease. Of those, 3,339 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.
403,488 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, 6,835,632 tests have been completed in North Carolina. As of July 7, 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 (40 percent). While 15 percent of the positive diagnoses were in people ages 65 and older, seniors make up 80 percent of coronavirus deaths in the state.
609 outbreaks are ongoing in group facilities across the state, including nursing homes and correctional and residential care facilities.
There are 3,591 ventilators in hospitals across the state and 1,172 ventilators in use, not just for coronavirus cases but also for patients with other reasons for being in the hospital. As of Tuesday, 768 COVID-19 patients were in intensive care units across the state.

Urban Ministries Center's leaders took a desolate area beyond Charlotte's Uptown and turned it into a supportive apartment community for people transitioning from homelessness.

Housing instability exacerbates the pandemic for the most vulnerable

November 12, 2020 by Melba Newsome

Housing instability exacerbates the pandemic for the most vulnerable - North Carolina Health News

Stable housing is an essential part of preventing the spread of and recovering from the coronavirus. However, those most at risk from the virus also have a greater risk of homelessness.

By Melba Newsome

This story is co-published by NC Health News, the Charlotte Post and the Charlotte Observer.

This story was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center.

In 1981, Martha Brown moved to Charlotte from rural Rutherford County to escape an abusive relationship.

In the nearly 40 years since then, Brown has had more than her share of personal and health misfortunes but always managed to keep herself afloat with a series of low-paying jobs, including as a certified nursing assistant, hotel cleaner and restaurant worker.

Then the coronavirus pandemic came.

It took its toll on the 63-year-old one catastrophe at a time. Over the span of a few months, the virus attacked her health, took away her employment and destabilized her housing. Weeks after recovering, Brown wonders if her life will ever return to its pre-pandemic state.

In early May, Brown was supplementing her disability by working part-time at a small soul food restaurant on the city’s east side. She got sick almost out of nowhere.

“One afternoon, I left work and rode the bus to Walmart. I think I was drooling at the mouth,” she says. “When I got there, I threw up in the bathroom. I went to the emergency room twice and stayed for four to six hours each time. Both times they just sent me back home.”

The details of the next few weeks are a blur. Brown starts to cry as she recounts what she can recall.

“I lost eight pounds because I didn’t eat for 10 days. I stayed in this room for 20 days with my daughter taking care of me. I had a fever of 104 and I could hear them saying they need to break my fever,” she said.

“It was so bad I told God, ‘Just take me home. I’m ready to go home!’ I wanted to die but I said ‘Lord, I can’t leave my only daughter!’”

After a few weeks, Brown’s physical health turned around but by then her job was gone and there was an eviction notice on her apartment door.

Brown’s experiences parallel those of many Black people across the country, state and city whose lives have been upended by the pandemic. As of November 11, Mecklenburg County has recorded 37,162 cases of coronavirus and 410 deaths. But those numbers only tell part of the story.

A wave of evictions

State and local governments have offered a patchwork of confusing and insufficient measures to help people like Brown stay in their homes. On March 27, the federal CARES Act imposed a 120-day moratorium on evictions but it only applied to renters whose landlords had federally backed mortgages.

On May 30, Gov. Roy Cooper issued a statewide executive order that kept residents in their homes by pausing all eviction hearings until June 21. These moratoriums only delayed the inevitable. When they expired, the back rent came due and eviction court proceedings resumed.

In the first week after the state’s eviction moratorium ended, 602 summary ejections or eviction hearings were scheduled in Mecklenburg County and 133 for the week after. Magistrates are working their way through the backlog. Once those orders are issued, Jesse Hamilton McCoy, a housing lawyer and supervising attorney for the Duke Law Civil Justice Clinic, says the time to vacate the residence will come quickly.

“North Carolina is the second-fastest eviction state in the nation,” says McCoy. “The entire process can be done in as little as 23 days. When the complaint is filed, you get a court date somewhere between seven and 10 days later. If you lose [in court], you have 10 days to appeal and post a rent bond. On the 11th day, the landlord can swear out a writ from the sheriff, the writ gets executed and they can padlock your doors.”

This is the scenario that troubled Brown on a Saturday evening in August as she listened intently to the news. During a press conference, President Trump touted a new executive order which he claimed would prohibit landlords or housing authorities from filing eviction actions, charging nonpayment fees or penalties, or giving notice to vacate.

For a moment, Brown thought that might be the help she’d been praying for.

She soon grew despondent when she realized that the president’s executive order merely directed some regulators to study whether an eviction moratorium was necessary and directed other agencies to investigate whether they could appropriate money for rental assistance.

“What’s this? Is he just saying something for the election?” she asks.

Basic need

Jerome Williams Jr. leads Novant Health’s overall strategy for social responsibility programs, community engagement partnerships, and community impact and wellness programs to address health disparities. He likes to remind you that the pandemic didn’t cause many of these challenges; it merely exposed them.

“Housing insecurity or lack of housing, food insecurity, transportation, lack of access to health care access capital and social capital, lack of upward mobility opportunity to name a few all existed before COVID,” says Williams. “Some of the activities that have occurred prior to COVID are now being exacerbated and I don’t think we’ve seen the worst yet.”

Defined by the World Health Organization as basic necessities that influence how healthy a person or community can become, social determinants of health such as housing, transportation and economic security loom large in the most vulnerable communities.

Social determinants account for roughly 80 percent of someone’s health and chronic medical problems. Housing is one of the most researched and understood of these issues. A number of studies have shown that the chronically homeless and those who are housing insecure are at substantially higher risk of poor health because it can result in disruptions to employment, social networks, education and the receipt of social service benefits.

Even the threat of eviction can negatively impact both mental and physical health. Children raised in unstable housing are more prone to hospitalization, homelessness is linked to delayed childhood development, and mothers in families that lose homes to eviction show higher rates of depression and other health challenges. A 2014 study published in The Lancet found that homeless people have higher rates of premature mortality than the rest of the population.

Williams sees a direct connection between Charlotte’s affordable housing crisis and the disparate impact of the pandemic on people of color.

“We have frontline and essential workers who may not have appropriate or adequate housing or the ability to completely isolate,” says Williams. “A number of them are no longer employed because certain businesses have closed. When paychecks are not coming in, rent can’t be paid. The stimulus isn’t forthcoming so individuals who are already on the margins and already challenged may now be faced with the prospect of eviction, which only exacerbates the problem.”

“You can’t shelter …”

Samuel Gunter, executive director of the North Carolina Housing Coalition, says housing insecurity poses an even greater risk for personal and community health during a pandemic. Government stay-at-home orders presume that residents have a home in which to isolate to avoid spreading or getting infected and to recover.

“You can’t shelter at home if you don’t have a home,” says Gunter.

Brown shares the apartment with her 39-year-old daughter and 20-year-old grandson. Intergenerational living arrangements like this are more common among Asian, Hispanic and Black families according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center. It also leads to increased patterns of virus transmission because younger persons are more apt to go in and out of the house for work or recreation and bring that exposure home to more susceptible family members.

Dense living environments also make effective isolation nearly impossible.

Charlotte and Mecklenburg County have set aside millions of dollars in local and federal funds to provide rental assistance for struggling renters. In addition, agencies like the United Way and Foundation for the Carolinas are raising their own funds to help.

Brown sought help from Crisis Assistance Ministry, a nonprofit that has been providing financial assistance for people in crisis since 1975. It took several weeks for the agency to work through its backlog of requests but Brown eventually received $1,000 toward her $1,200 rent. But soon, she was back to fretting over where she would find money for the next month.

A coming tsunami?

On August 7, a group of national housing and eviction experts, including Emily Benfer at Wake Forest University School of Law, released the COVID-19 Eviction Crisis: An Estimated 30-40 Million People in America are At Risk. The researchers found that many property owners will also struggle to avoid calamity and face increased risk of foreclosure and bankruptcy.

That stark warning may have pushed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue its September 4 nationwide eviction moratorium for the remainder of the year, a tacit acknowledgment that stable housing and health can’t be decoupled, particularly during a pandemic.

In late October, Gov. Roy Cooper issued an executive order that complements the CDC’s moratorium, increasing some protections for North Carolina renters. His move requires that landlords inform tenants of the CDC moratorium and prohibits them from placing extra hurdles to renters taking advantage of the CDC’s protection.

North Carolina also made available $117 million for the HOPE program, an assistance fund for residents struggling to pay utility bills and rent. But that money has been moving quickly and as of the end of October, more than 22,800 applications had been made for funds.

When there were no state or federal moratoriums in place from June 24 to Sept. 3, Mecklenburg County landlords filed 2,301 eviction cases, according to data analysis by the North Carolina News Collaborative.

A report prepared for the National Council of State Housing Agencies in September estimated that between 300,000 and 410,000 households across North Carolina are currently unable to pay rent leading to the possibility of nearly 240,000 eviction filings in January.

The CDC’s federal eviction moratorium expires on Dec. 31. But without additional financial assistance, housing advocates predict another deluge of evictions at the worst time imaginable–the dead of winter. Cooper’s order expires on the same day.

“You’re just essentially postponing those evictions from now until January,” said McCoy.

For people like Brown, it could be a rough start to the new year.

Support for this story was provided by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting.

Sepia tone image of a young girl with an older man both wearing a mask against COVID, they're painting a pumpkin

Coronavirus Today – Oct. 28 Eviction protection order; ‘Will I be with anyone I don’t live with?’; Charlotte church convocation and 143 cases

October 28, 2020 by Anne Blythe

Coronavirus Today – Oct. 28 Eviction protection order; ‘Will I be with anyone I don’t live with?’; Charlotte church convocation and 143 cases - North Carolina Health News

COVID-19 case surge in NC linked to small family gatherings, large events and people letting their guard down.

By Anne Blythe

North Carolina’s rural counties have become a major source for rising COVID-19 case counts, according to public health officials.

Gov. Roy Cooper and Mandy Cohen, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, offered an array of reasons on Wednesday for the case surge occurring as cooler weather is sending more people indoors.

“North Carolina is seeing high case counts and hospitalizations from COVID-19 as this virus continues spreading through our state,” Cooper said during a briefing with reporters. “We know large gatherings can spread this virus rapidly, particularly when masks are ignored. But importantly contact tracers are finding that many cases come from smaller gatherings of extended family and friends, youth group outings, family meals, church.”

Too often, Cooper said, the virus spread occurs when people gather with others outside their household who they know and trust.

“But knowing and trusting doesn’t stop the virus,” Cooper said. “Today we need people to hear us loud and clear: If you’re gathered with anyone who does not live in your household, you are at risk. And they are, too.”

North Carolina has had 266,136 lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic with 2,253 new cases reported on Wednesday.

The number of people being tested has increased, Cohen said, but the percentage of tests that are coming back positive is close to 7 percent, rising above the 5-percent mark that public health officials prefer to be at or below.

“We are seeing higher cases in our rural areas,” Cohen said. “We are seeing more cases amongst those who are white.”

Though North Carolina’s health care systems have ICU and hospital bed capacity for those who become severely ill because of COVID-19, Cohen has concerns about a growing strain on some of the rural providers.

Cohen and Cooper urged North Carolinians to work together and show respect for others by wearing face masks and avoiding large crowds.

DHHS launched a new public service announcement as part of the statewide “Whatever your reason, get behind the mask” campaign.

The new ad urges people to ask themselves one question when deciding whether to wear a mask: “Will I be with anyone I don’t live with?”

“If the answer is yes,” the ad continues, “get behind the mask.”

Shows a bar graph where bars represent each day. The different colors represent the race of people admitted to the hospital for COVID. At the time of the graph, whites represent 2/3rds of the admissions, Blacks around 25 prcent and — Daily demographic trend of COVID-19 patients who have been newly admitted to the hospital. Current admission trends more closely reflect the racial breakdown of North Carolinians. Graph courtesy: NC DHHS

Fly-in, fly-out campaigns

As Election Day gets closer and presidential and U.S. congressional candidates try to woo voters in North Carolina, a state political analysts and pollsters say could swing Democrat or Republican, there have been many campaign rallies.

The Trump-Pence rallies have drawn crowds that often are packed tightly together with many people not wearing masks.

The Biden-Harris campaign has done smaller events with social distancing and mask wearing.

Cooper and Cohen were asked whether contact tracing pinpointed any of the political events as the source of some of the recent virus spread.

“We are concerned when there are any large gatherings, particularly when people stand together not socially distanced for long periods of times and when they’re not wearing masks and people usually coming from all over the place,” Cooper said.

Contact tracers have met resistance when asking people where they think they might have contracted the virus. Some don’t answer calls or texts. Others do not want to cause trouble for a friend or family member and are reluctant to provide such details.

“I’m really concerned about campaigns that fly in all over the place and come into North Carolina, hold these large events, gathering a lot of people together, also bringing people in from out of state and then leaving,” Cooper said without mentioning any campaign by name.

“Then we know two to three weeks later, oftentimes, you see spread that occur, infections that occur. We are particularly concerned about our rural areas, where hospitals are a little bit thinner and it’s more difficult for them to be able to accept a lot of patients.”

Cooper said North Carolina could see spikes similar to those that have vexed health care systems elsewhere if more people don’t embrace the best measures for slowing COVID-19 spread.

“It is very frustrating when they’re holding these events and then leaving, and North Carolina residents are going to have to deal with this aftermath,” he said.

Charlotte church event

In Mecklenburg County, the United House of Prayer for All People has been singled out as the source of a super-spreader convocation event that prompted Gibbie Harris, the county public health director, to issue an abatement order.

The public health department has identified 143 COVID-19 cases connected with a weeklong event that occurred from Oct. 4 to Oct. 11.

Five deaths are associated with the gathering, four of which were Mecklenburg County residents and one Gaston County resident.

Contact tracers also linked the convocation to a cluster at Madison Saints Paradise South Senior Living in which 16 residents and three staff tested positive for the virus, according to Mecklenburg County public health officials.

People came from other states, too, and county public health officials have notified health departments in California, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina and Washington, D.C., to be on the lookout for cases that might be linked to the event.

How about a Halloween scavenger hunt?

As case counts rise in North Carolina, holidays are approaching, too.

Cooper and Cohen have suggested that people find new ways to mark the special occasions, beginning on Saturday with Halloween.

Cohen, the mother of two girls in elementary school, plans to celebrate with her daughters.

“We can celebrate Halloween this weekend,” Cohen said. “We just need to do some of the lower risk activities. I am planning to do a trick-or-treat scavenger hunt with my girls at a nearby park. I’ll also lay Halloween candy out on a large table outside our front door. That way no one has to dig hands into a candy bowl or even ring our doorbell.”

The DHHS website has guidance for low-risk activities for Halloween.

Duke physicians recently offered ideas, too, for Halloween and Day of the Dead celebrations, which take place on Sunday and are traditional in the Latino community.

Sepia tone image of a young Black woman wearing a mask against COVID in a store talking with another woman, who's also wearing a mask — Screenshot of a new public service announcement encouraging mask wearing in order to prevent transmission of COVID-19.
“The key to our efforts to slow the spread of this virus and protect our friends and neighbors is wearing a mask,” said DHHS Sec. Mandy Cohen. Screenshot courtesy: NC DHHS

Trying to prevent evictions

This coronavirus pandemic has put a damper on life for many and left many in peril of being pushed out of their homes because they are behind on rent payments.

Cooper issued an executive order on Wednesday to strengthen protections against eviction.

A report prepared for the National Council of State Housing Agencies in September estimated that some 300,000 to 410,000 households across North Carolina are currently unable to pay rent leading to the possibility of nearly 240,000 eviction filings in January.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put a nationwide eviction moratorium in effect through the end of the year, but Cooper said Wednesday that landlords were confused about who the order protects.

Cooper’s order requires landlords to make residential tenants aware of their rights under the CDC order.

Earlier this month, Cooper launched the NC HOPE program, a $117 million assistance fund for residents struggling to pay utility bills and rent.

The program already has received 22,800 applicants in search of help.

“The HOPE program is going a long way to help families stay safe in their homes by using coronavirus funds responsibly to pay landlords and utilities directly,” Cooper said, adding that more federal aid is needed.

An additional measure offered by the state is the Back@Home program, which also provides financial relief for families at risk of becoming homeless.

People in need of help can call 211 or go to nc211.org/hope.

Coronavirus by the numbers

According to NCDHHS data, as of Wednesday afternoon:

4,245 people total in North Carolina have died of coronavirus.
266,136 have been diagnosed with the disease. Of those, 1,193 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.
231,611 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, 3,912,599 tests have been completed in North Carolina. As of July 7, 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 (40 percent). While 14 percent of the positive diagnoses were in people ages 65 and older, seniors make up 81 percent of coronavirus deaths in the state.
356 outbreaks are ongoing in group facilities across the state, including nursing homes and correctional and residential care facilities.
There are 2,227 ventilators in hospitals across the state and 807 ventilators in use, not just for coronavirus cases but also for patients with other reasons for being in the hospital. As of Tuesday, 297 suspected COVID-19 cases were in intensive care units across the state.

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Coronavirus Today – Dec. 30 Which COVID-19 vaccine phase are you in?; If you’re 75 and older, a shot might be available in January; Eviction moratorium extended

Coronavirus Today – Dec. 30 Which COVID-19 vaccine phase are you in?; If you’re 75 and older, a shot might be available in January; Eviction moratorium extended - North Carolina Health News

By Anne Blythe

When is my shot at a shot?

Overcoming systemic racial injustices

‘Very, very worried’

Extended eviction moratorium

Nursing home residents continue to die from COVID

Coronavirus by the numbers

Housing instability exacerbates the pandemic for the most vulnerable

Housing instability exacerbates the pandemic for the most vulnerable - North Carolina Health News

By Melba Newsome

A wave of evictions

Basic need

“You can’t shelter …”

A coming tsunami?