Orange County Health News
July 21, 2021 |
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North Carolina Selects Second
COVID Vaccine Lottery WinnersNorth Carolina Public Radio | By Associated Press
Published July 16, 2021 at 9:33AM EDTNorth Carolina health officials on Thursday unveiled the state's latest recipients of a $1 million cash prize and $125,000 college scholarship for getting a COVID-19 vaccine.
Natalie Everett of Pineville won the $1 million before taxes, while Jessica Klima, a 16-year-old high school student and Greensboro resident, earned the $125,000 scholarship.
The lottery is open to nearly all residents who have gotten at least one COVID-19 shot. Two more contests will be held on July 21 and Aug. 4, with winners to be announced publicly the week after the drawings.
"I'm excited, grateful and it's just very overwhelming," Everett said during a Thursday news conference.
Kilma, who wants to become a physical therapist, said her parents jumped up and down with excitement after learning she won.
North Carolina's first lottery winners, Shelly Wyramon and Vania Martinez, were identified last month.
Since the state announced on June 10 that it would give out $1 million each to four vaccinated adults and a $125,000 scholarship to residents aged 12 to 17, more than 225,000 residents have come in for a first dose.
Last week, demand for first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine reached its lowest level since the week of Dec. 14, 2020, when shots were just becoming available and supplies were severely limited.
Dr. Mandy Cohen, the state's top public health official, said similar lotteries in other states, including Ohio, have boosted vaccine participation.
"We continue to focus on many ways to reach folks," Cohen said.
Unvaccinated adults who come in for a shot at a participating vaccination site qualify for a $25 cash card, which comes in the form of a prepaid Mastercard. Adults who drive someone to get their first dose can also get $25.
North Carolina was fairly late to the game in offering financial perks and continues to lag in vaccine administration. Of the 23 states run by a Democratic governor, North Carolina is the third worst in vaccines administered per capita.
As of Monday, the state had more than 2.1 million vaccine doses sitting on shelves waiting for residents to take. Since December, state providers have either returned or refused to accept more than 4.2 million shots from the federal government due to lack of demand.
Cohen, who got the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, is calling on individuals who got the Pfizer, Moderna or J&J vaccines to explain to loved ones why they chose to get the shot. Among the perks is not having to wear a mask, even in communities where fewer people are vaccinated and spread of the more lethal delta variant is higher.
"I do feel protected from COVID, but this is where we all need to work together," Cohen said. "The more people in North Carolina that get vaccinated, it protects each other."
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Free COVID-19 Vaccine ClinicsChapel Hill Vaccine Clinics
2501 Homestead Rd., Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Monday - Friday, 8:30am to 4:30pm
(Closed for holidays)
Please call 919-913-8088 to schedule an appointment
Moderna, Pfizer, and Janssen are available
Hillsborough Vaccine Clinics
2nd Floor, 300 W Tryon St., Hillsborough, NC 27278
Monday - Saturday, 9:00am - 5:00pm
*Friday, June 23, 9:00am - 2:00pm
*Whitted Vaccine Clinic is closed on Saturday, July 24
Please call 877-505-6723 to schedule an appointment
Please call 919-913-8088 for questions
Moderna and Pfizer are available
Pop-Up Vaccine Clinic
In addition to our regularly scheduled walk-in clinics (see above), the Orange County Health Department is pleased to offer a pop-up vaccine clinic to all community members ages 12 and older. We encourage you to register by calling 919-913-8088 or by visiting https://www.myspot.nc.gov. Walk-ins are also welcome!
Last Fridays in Hillsborough
104 E. King St., Hillsborough, NC (the old courthouse in Hillsborough)
Friday, July 30th from 6:00pm to 9:00pm
Flyer: English/Español
Chapel Hill: Clínica de la Vacuna de COVID-19
2501 Homestead Rd., Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Lunes a viernes, 8:30am a 4:30pm
(Estamos cerrados por vacaciones)
Llame al 919-913-0800 para solicitor asistencia
Moderna, Pfizer y Janssen están disponsibles
Hillsborough: Clínica de la Vacuna de COVID-19
El segundo piso en 300 W Tryon St., Hillsborough, NC 27278
Lunes a sábado, 9:00am a 5:00pm
*Viernes el 23 de julio, 9:00am a 2:00pm
*La clínica está cerrado Sábado el 23 de julio
Llama al 877-505-6723 para registrarse
Llama al 919-913-8088 para solicitor asistencia
Moderna y Pfizer están disponsibles
Clínica Emergente Para Vacunarse Contra La COVID-19
Viernes, 30 de julio del 2021 de 6:00 pm a 9:00 pm “Last Fridays”
Los viernes últimos en Hillsborough 104 E. King St., Hillsborough, NC
Gratis y no se requiere ni identificación ni aseguranza. Abierto a todos los miembros de la comunidad de 12 años y mayores. ¡Comparte este volante con familiares y amigos! Inscríbase llamando al 919-913-8088 o visite a https://www.myspot.nc.gov.
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Grilling Safety
There's nothing like outdoor grilling. It is one of the most popular ways to cook food. But a grill placed too close to anything that can burn is a fire hazard. They can be very hot, causing burn injuries. Follow these simple tips and you will be on the way to safe grilling.
Safety Tips
- Propane and charcoal BBQ grills should only be used outdoors.
- The grill should be placed well away from the home, deck railings, and out from under eaves and overhanging branches.
- Keep children and pets at least 3 feet away from the grill area.
- Keep your grill clean by removing grease or fat buildup from the grills and in trays below the grill.
- Never leave your grill unattended.
- Always make sure your gas grill lid is open before lighting it.
- Charcoal grills: If you use a starter fluid, use only charcoal starter fluid. Never add charcoal fluid or any other flammable liquids to the fire.
- Propane grills: Check the gas tank hose for leaks before using it for the first time. If you smell gas while cooking, immediately get away from the grill and call the fire department. Do not move the grill. If the flame goes out, turn the grill and gas off and wait at least 5 minutes before re-lighting it.
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 With hopes of being of being an astronaut someday, Miché Aaron is studying planetary sciences at Johns Hopkins University. She struggled in the doctoral program until she was diagnosed with ADHD but is now thriving academically. (WILL KIRK / JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY)
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With a Diagnosis at Last,
Black Women with ADHD Start HealingMiché Aaron has always been a high achiever. The 29-year-old is in her third year of a planetary sciences doctoral program at Johns Hopkins University, where she researches minerals found on Mars. She’s a former NASA space grant scholar and hopes to become an astronaut one day. But last year, Aaron was barely keeping it together — missing classes, late on assignments and struggling to explain that she understood the required material to pass her qualifying exams. Her academic adviser warned that if she didn’t get professional help she would flunk.
“I simply thought I was a lazy student and I needed to try harder,” Aaron said, wiping the tears behind her thick, black-framed glasses. Then she was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and it all made sense.
For many Black women like Aaron, finally having that answer comes with both relief and grief after years of suffering and being misunderstood. Already subject to unique discrimination at the intersection of gender and race, Black girls with ADHD often remain undiagnosed because their symptoms are mischaracterized. Signs of inattentiveness or impulsivity, two main features of the disorder, could be mistaken for laziness or defiance. And the longer these girls aren’t diagnosed and treated, the more their problems are likely to worsen as they grow into adults.
While the 2016 National Survey of Children’s Health showed that 6.1 million children ages 2 to 17 in the United States have received a diagnosis for ADHD at some point, millions more adults are estimated to have it, too — either having grown up with a diagnosis or being diagnosed later in life, if at all.
ADHD doesn’t discriminate by gender or race, but white boys are still more likely to be diagnosed and treated for the condition than anyone else. Experts and advocates say this leads to an inequity in care that hurts girls of any background and children of color of any gender.
Over the past few decades, mental health experts and researchers have started to understand how ADHD manifests differently depending on gender, as girls with the condition tend to seem more inattentive and forgetful while boys tend to seem more hyperactive and disruptive. The reasons Black children and ethnic minorities are overlooked range from racial bias in schools and lack of access to care, to stigma and distrust of educators and health providers based on past discrimination.
Paul Morgan, director of the Center for Educational Disparities Research at Penn State, is the lead author of multiple studies showing that the disparities in school start early. By kindergarten, Black children in the U.S. are 70% less likely to receive an ADHD diagnosis than otherwise similar white children. A 2016 study found that by 10th grade white children are nearly twice as likely to receive a diagnosis for ADHD as Black children. Lead author Dr. Tumaini Rucker Coker, head of general pediatrics at Seattle Children’s Hospital and a top researcher at its Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development, said that, while her study didn’t look at underdiagnosis of Black girls, federal Education Department data shows telling signs of racial and gender discrimination in diagnosing ADHD: Black girls are six times as likely to be suspended from school as white girls.
Behavior as common as talking back in class could have wildly different consequences, depending on how it’s interpreted, Coker explained. For Black girls, it’s often viewed as “intimidation” of a teacher.
“When there’s ‘bad behavior’ and you’re a white girl, you get all the benefit of the doubt,” Coker said. “On the opposite spectrum, you get zero benefit of the doubt as a Black girl.”
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Anxiety Without a Pause:
Parents Reflect on Pandemic Schooling
July 12, 2021 by Chiung-Wei Huang
Parents say that more than one year of distance learning was exhausting. Now a UNC-CH researcher is studying parents’ anxiety as their children go back to school.
At 8 a.m. sharp, Laura Farnan, a parent in Chapel Hill of one rising first-grader and one middle school student, is all set. She sits beside her younger boy to make sure his eyes are on the iPad in front of him where his teacher begins the morning classes. Across the table, Farnan is relieved to see her older daughter making progress on school assignments without much adult monitoring.
This had been Farnan’s routine for much of the pandemic. After more than one year of virtual learning, North Carolina children and parents had a multitude of experiences. Some families found it rewarding. Others were more than eager to get their children back to in-person class.
“I’m happy that we have options and could be safe,” Farnan said. “They are old enough to understand why they are home because I know that some kids really wanted to go back to school.”
One North Carolina researcher, Cassandra Davis, assistant professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), explored many issues related to homeschooling during the pandemic. She discovered that parents with children who struggled with distance learning experienced elevated levels of mental distress.
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North Carolina COVID-19 Cases
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) reports 1,028,131 COVID-19 cases, 13,550 deaths, and 694 hospitalizations.
49% of North Carolina's population is at least partially vaccinated, and 46% is fully vaccinated.
There are currently 8,693 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 101 deaths in Orange County. 66% of Orange County residents are at least partially vaccinated, and 64% 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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