Emergency Preparedness and Response:
March 24, 2021 |
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While COVID-19 Restrictions are Easing, Mask Mandate and Other Safety Protocols Remain in Effect
Governor Roy Cooper announced lifting some restrictions put in place due to the coronavirus pandemic, with Executive Order 204, which will take effect Friday, March 26 at 5pm and is set to expire on April 30th.
Executive Order No. 204 has three general categories of occupancy restrictions: up to 100 percent capacity, 75 percent capacity, and 50 percent capacity. All businesses must continue to maintain the 6 feet of distance requirement between patrons and implement other safety protocols as they expand their capacity.
The number of people who may gather indoors will increase from 25 to 50 and the number of people who may gather outdoors will increase from 50 to 100. This Order also fully lifts the restriction on the late-night sale and service of alcoholic beverages on bars, restaurants, and other establishments.
What will be staying the same?
The statewide mask mandate remains in effect, and masks are still required in both outdoor and indoor settings. Social distancing is still required even as restrictions for capacity are lifted.
What will be changing?
Low Risk Settings
- Can open up to full capacity
- This includes childcare, camps, outdoor playgrounds, museums, retail and personal care businesses.
Medium Risk Settings
- Can open up to 75% capacity indoors
- This includes restaurants, breweries, wineries, gyms, pools and amusement parks.
Higher Risk Settings
- Can open up to 50% capacity
- This includes arenas, conference and reception spaces, movie theaters, gaming and bars.
The decision is based on North Carolina’s COVID-19 key metrics, including a reduction in cases, percent of positive tests, hospitalizations, and number of people visiting the emergency room for COVID-19 symptoms. As vaccine production and distribution is increasing, many North Carolinians are being vaccinated which is contributing to the positive trend in data as well.
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People With High-Risk Medical Conditions in Group 4 Now Eligible for COVID-19 Vaccine
Governor Roy Cooper and North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) Secretary Mandy K. Cohen, M.D. announced that beginning on March 17, people in Group 4 who have a medical condition that puts them at higher risk of serious illness and people who live in certain congregate settings will be eligible for vaccination. The rest of Group 4, which includes other essential workers will become eligible April 7. (See Deeper Dive).
People with high-risk medical conditions, people experiencing homelessness, and incarcerated people who have not been vaccinated will be eligible March 17. North Carolina plans to move to other essential workers and other people in close group living settings on April 7.
The Orange County Health Department (OCHD) is ready for people in Group 4 to sign up to be vaccinated. To register with OCHD complete the Vaccine Interest Form (VIF) at https://redcap.link/OCHDvax or call (919) 913-8088. The phone line is operated daily from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Spanish and other languages available.
Group 4 registrants will be placed on a waitlist and will receive a notice as soon as an appointment becomes available.
More than 1.1 million North Carolinians have been fully vaccinated as the state works with local health departments and providers to distribute this vaccine quickly and equitably. While supply is still limited, the increased federal allocation of doses is helping providers administer vaccines to more people.
In Orange County 25,403 people, or 17.1% of the population is fully vaccinated. OCHD has administered 5,868 first doses and 3,553 second doses. The Orange County Health Department is just one of several vaccinators available. The NCDHHS maintains a complete list of vaccinators at www.myspot.nc.gov. Community members may also call (888) 892-1162 to find a vaccine location. Spanish and other languages available.
“We are very fortunate to now have three tested, safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines that keep people out of the hospital and prevent death from this virus,” said Secretary Cohen. “With improving supplies, North Carolina can get more people vaccinated sooner and meet our goals to provide equitable access to vaccinations in every community in the state.”
North Carolina has continued to emphasize equity in the vaccine distribution process. In the last four weeks, more than 20 percent of the state’s first doses have been administered to Black North Carolinians. Bloomberg News recognized North Carolina as the leader in the nation for reporting demographic data on who has been vaccinated down to the county level.
A federally supported community vaccination center opened this week in Greensboro. This site — one of just 18 sites nationally — will help the state continue its effort to reach more marginalized and underserved communities. The federal government will provide the center’s vaccine supply, which is in addition to North Carolina’s weekly allotment from the Centers for Disease Control. The site will operate seven days a week with the capacity to provide up to 3,000 vaccinations per day, with options for drive-thru service in the parking lot and walk-in service.
Detailed information about each vaccine group is online at YourSpotYourShot.nc.gov (English) or vacunate.nc.gov (Spanish). North Carolinians can find vaccine providers in their community through the NCDHHS online tool, Find a Vaccine Location. The COVID-19 vaccine help center is available to answer vaccine questions at 888-675-4567.
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COVID-19 Vaccines are Available at Many Locations
The Orange County Health Department is just one of the places you can get a COVID-19 Vaccine. Here is a short list of locations: There are many more! NCDHHS maintains a list of all the vaccination sites in North Carolina: https://myspot.nc.gov |
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Free Daily COVID Testing
No-cost daily COVID testing is still available! Testing is an important tool to help prevent the spread of the virus throughout the community. We do not require a doctors note/referral, and we will test everyone with or without symptoms. People of all ages can be tested. We have interpreters on site and capacity to do virtual interpretation.
Weekday Testing Hillsborough
COVID-19 testing is available every weekday Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm at Whitted Human Services Center at 300 W. Tryon St., Hillsborough NC 27278. Pre-registration is encouraged and may be done online. Select Orange County when registering:
https://unityphm.com/campaigns/starmed
There will be a few exceptions due to holidays, weather conditions, or other events. Please check our calendar below for testing dates.
Monday-Saturday Testing Chapel Hill
COVID-19 testing is available every weekday Monday through Saturday from 9am to 6pm at R7 Parking Lot at 725 MLK Blvd., Chapel Hill, NC 27514. Pre-registration is encouraged and may be done online:
https://lhi.care/covidtesting.
There will be a few exceptions due to holidays, weather conditions, or other events. Please check our calendar below for testing dates.
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After Georgia Attacks, Asian-Americans Demand Serious Action on BiasAmid fear, sadness and pain, the shootings in the Atlanta area have generated anger over the country’s longstanding failure to address anti-Asian discrimination.
By John Eligon, Thomas Fuller and Jill Cowan
March 18, 2021
The New York Times
Video clips of disturbing attacks on the street. Insults hurled by politicians. Derogatory graffiti scrawled on businesses.
For most of the last year, Asian-Americans have sounded the alarm over the rising discrimination they have experienced and witnessed, fueled in part by racist language and false claims about the coronavirus by former President Donald J. Trump and other public officials. Celebrities, activists and influencers on social media have implored people to stop the hate against Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Then came the fatal shootings in Georgia of eight people, six of them women of Asian descent.
Amid fear, sadness and pain, the carnage has evoked another emotion among some Asian-Americans: anger over the country’s longstanding failure to take discrimination against them seriously.
Some scholars and activists said Tuesday’s massacre was unsurprising after public officials and popular culture have for years downplayed the dangers of bias and stereotypes against Asians.
Although Asian-Americans, like other minority groups, have endured a long tradition of deadly violence, the threats and discrimination they continue to face are often trivialized as harmless insults. In many cases, some said, people are reluctant to even acknowledge that attacks against Asian-Americans could be racially motivated, as happened on Wednesday when a law enforcement official in Georgia seemed to dismiss racial animus as a motive in the shootings.
Instead, he said the suspect, Robert Aaron Long, who is white, was having “a really bad day” and cited Mr. Long’s statement that he was driven by a sex addiction, and not racial bias.
Even when anti-Asian violence is acknowledged, experts say, it is sometimes casually dismissed as an isolated episode, rather than a core part of the Asian-American story.
“There’s a tendency to not believe that violence against Asian-Americans is real,” said Angela Hsu, 52, a lawyer in suburban Atlanta. “It’s almost like you need something really, really jarring to make people believe that there is discrimination against Asian-Americans.”
Without a deeper, widespread understanding of, or belief in, the dangers that Asian-Americans face, it’s difficult for activists to marshal a concerted national push — in law enforcement, the media and the public — to fight anti-Asian racism, activists say.
Now many are hoping that the tragedy in Georgia ignites a more aggressive and tangible effort to weed out hate against their communities.
Ms. Hsu, the president of the Georgia Asian Pacific American Bar Association, for example, called for investigators to approach Mr. Long’s account, that the shootings were driven by a sex addiction, with skepticism.
“The truth could be much more complicated,” she said, adding that pinning down the role that race may have played was important. “It’s an opportunity to talk about the larger issue. It isn’t discussed enough.”
Perceptions of anti-Asian discrimination are shaped by complex factors. There’s the vast diversity of what it means to be Asian-American: The population comprises those whose families have been in the United States for generations and people who have come from dozens of countries under many different circumstances, including as refugees.
They have varying levels of education and English proficiency and can land at different places on the American political spectrum, sometimes depending on the issue. Some, particularly first-generation immigrants, are less inclined to call out racism, while their children might be more willing to speak up.
“I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve heard in the classroom, after many, many, many years of teaching, how my students will continuously say, ‘I never knew that this happened,’” she said.There is also the stereotype that all people of Asian descent are economically and educationally successful, which can lead to the incorrect assumption that the discrimination they face can’t be that bad.
In fact, some of the Asian-Americans who have been subjected to the most vicious violence have been people living on the socioeconomic margins. They tend to be invisible to much of society, which only furthers a widespread dismissal of anti-Asian violence, said Chris J. Lee, 33, a founder of Plan A Magazine, an online journal focused on Asian-American culture and politics.
“The types of people who get killed, like people who work at massage parlors, elderly Asians picking up cans for a living — none of us really know these people,” he said.
The marginalization of Asian-Americans has deep roots.
Chinese immigrants who built railways and mined gold in the 19th century were shunted into Chinatowns in San Francisco and other cities, redlined by financial institutions and often left to fend for themselves.
Further immigration from China was restricted by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first immigration law targeting working-class immigrants from a specific country. It was followed in 1917 by the most restrictive immigration law in the nation’s history, the Asiatic Barred Zone Act, which blocked immigrants from Istanbul all the way to Jakarta and beyond, nearly eliminating all arrivals from some of the most populous areas of the planet — the South Asian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
Japanese residents in the United States were for decades kept out of white neighborhoods through covenants written into real estate deeds; tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese descent were incarcerated in internment camps during World War II.
When immigration laws were liberalized in the 1960s, immigrants from Asia were allowed into the U.S. in unprecedented numbers.
Asian ethnic groups, though distinct from one another, have at times been lumped together under the umbrella of an Asian-American identity. But the anti-Asian violence that has come during the pandemic seems to have solidified a greater sense of solidarity among a group that is diverse in income, religion and culture, said Will Lex Ham, an actor who has helped lead a campaign of awareness of violence against Asians.
“As long as we share the same physical features, we are being treated the same in this country,” Mr. Ham said.
In the wake of attacks on older people in Asian neighborhoods in California, some community leaders have demanded an increased police presence. Others have said that simply adding law enforcement officers was not a solution.
Some are pushing Gov. Gavin Newsom to appoint an Asian-American to be California’s attorney general.
An Asian-American as the state’s top law enforcement official is needed to build trust, “particularly when it comes to what have been strained relationships between law enforcement and immigrant communities and communities of color,” David Chiu, a member of the California State Assembly, said during a news conference on Wednesday.
In the Atlanta area, where the Asian community has grown in recent years and become more politically influential, the murders have reignited anxieties that may have been subsiding for some people as an end to the pandemic is in sight. When the pandemic began, Ms. Hsu, the lawyer, said she almost expected that people would hurl insults at her because she is Chinese-American. In recent weeks, she had let her guard down, she said.“We’re coming out of the pandemic, there’s a new president, we’re not hearing ‘Kung Flu’ and ‘China Virus’ every other word,” she said, referring to some of the derogatory terms that Mr. Trump used for the coronavirus. “I was really lured into thinking it’s sort of safe to go outside again.” Now, she is back on high alert.
Suraiya Sharker, a community organizer with the Atlanta chapter of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, said that after the shootings, she received calls from several members of her organization who were in tears.
Ms. Sharker, 22, is particularly worried about her parents, who moved to the United States from Bangladesh when she was 4, because they are of the demographic particularly vulnerable to attacks. As first generation immigrants, their English is not perfect. They work in a fast-food restaurant in suburban Atlanta, where, Ms. Sharker said, a customer once threatened her father in a disagreement over the bill and customers have refused to be served by her mother because she wears a hijab.
But as much as she and other Asian-Americans are more cautious now, they are also more energized, she said.
“This,” she said, “has been an awakening for a lot of folks to say, ‘Enough is enough.’”
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NC Medicaid Managed Care Open Enrollment North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has begun mailing enrollment packets statewide and launched new resources for beneficiaries as it prepares for NC Medicaid Managed Care Open Enrollment which begins on March 15, 2021. Medicaid beneficiaries can now call the NC Medicaid Enrollment Call Center to learn more about NC Medicaid Managed Care and can download a free beneficiary enrollment mobile app. These new tools, as well as the NC Medicaid enrollment website, will assist beneficiaries in choosing a primary care provider (PCP) and a health plan for their families’ care. Some people will not need to choose a health plan because of the type of health services they need.
The NC Medicaid Enrollment Call Center number is 833-870-5500/TTY: 833-870-5588. The free mobile app, called NC Medicaid Managed Care is available on Google Play or the App Store. Mailing of enrollment packets is being done in batches and should arrive at beneficiary homes by Monday, March 15, 2021.
Open enrollment officially begins March 15, but beneficiaries can proceed now with online enrollment, or call the NC Medicaid Enrollment Call Center for assistance. |
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North Carolina COVID-19 Cases
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) reports 901,262 COVID-19 cases, 11,894 deaths, and 981 hospitalizations.
22.2% of North Carolina's population are at least partially vaccinated, and 14.1% are fully vaccinated.
There are currently 7,961 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 99 deaths in Orange County. 30.1% of Orange County residents are at least partially vaccinated, and 20.6% are fully vaccinated.
For more information regarding live updates (NCDHHS updates the site every day around noon), please visit the NCDHHS website.
Orange County Health Department also has a COVID-19 dashboard webpage, with information on COVID-19 data in the county.
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