Emergency Preparedness and Response:
April 7, 2021 |
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Group 5 (Everyone 16+) Eligible for
COVID Vaccine
The Orange County Health Department (OCHD) is ready for people in remaining groups 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.
The Orange County Health Department is not the only place to get the vaccine. See a full list of vaccinators at myspot.nc.gov or call 888-892-1162.
Providers vaccinating in Orange County (note that the list is subject to change)
- Orange County Health Department: Visit their Get Your Shot page to sign up or call 919-913-8088 between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. seven days a week.
- Greensboro Mass Vaccination Site: Visit the Registration page or call 1-888-675-4567.
- UNC Health: Visit the Get Vaccinated page or call 984-215-5485 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday-Friday.
- Piedmont Health Services: Visit the COVID-19 Testing and Vaccination page or call 919-545-3452.
- Hillsborough Pharmacy: Visit their Home Page or call 919-245-1212.
- Duke Health: Visit the COVID-19 Vaccines Update page to join the waiting list. If you are a Duke MyChart user, you can check Duke MyChart regularly to view appointment availability.
- Cone Health: Visit the COVID-19 Vaccine Information page to join the waiting list.
- Durham Veterans Affairs Health Care System: Call 919-286-0411 and dial 0 for the operator to schedule an appointment if you are a veteran at high risk or a veteran frontline essential worker. The VA will reach out to more veterans as additional supplies become available. See the system’s website for more information. See the COVID-19 Vaccine for High Risk Veterans to see the listing of veterans eligible now for vaccination through the VA.
- Walgreens: There are five Walgreens in Orange County that offer vaccines:
- 1670 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Chapel Hill
- 1500 E. Franklin St., Chapel Hill
- 801 Mebane Oaks Rd., Mebane
- 1106 Environ Way, Chapel Hill
- 200 US Highway 70 E, Hillsborough
Related Links |
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Pfizer Says COVID-19 Vaccine Shows '100% Efficacy' in Adolescents
Updated March 31, 20218:17 AM ET
New clinical trials showed that Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine elicits "100% efficacy and robust antibody responses" in adolescents from 12 to 15 years old, the drug company announced Wednesday. The trial included 2,260 participants; the results are even better than earlier responses from participants ages 16 to 25.
Pfizer and its vaccine partner BioNTech said they will submit the results "as soon as possible" to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency, asking regulators to expand their authorizations for the vaccine's use in young people.
Pfizer will submit the data "in the coming weeks," Pfizer CEO and Chairman Albert Bourla said in a news release about the trial. Calling the results encouraging, he added that the company is acting "with the hope of starting to vaccinate this age group before the start of the next school year."
During the clinical trial, 18 people who were in the placebo group developed COVID-19, while none of the people in the vaccinated group did. Blood tests showed a strong immune system response one month after participants received the second vaccine dose, according to a summary of test data released by Pfizer.As for potential side effects, Pfizer said the vaccine was tolerated well in the late-stage trial.
Currently, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is authorized for use only in people who are at least 16. The companies, which developed the vaccine together, are working to test it in children as young as 6 months. In the first part of that study, a group of kids from 5 to 11 years old got their first shots last week. A second group, ages 2 to 5, are slated to receive their first doses next week.
Moderna, whose COVID-19 vaccine is authorized for people 18 and older in the U.S., is also testing its vaccine in adolescents; it announced a trial of around 3,000 participants from 12 to 18 years old in December. Moderna also said earlier this month it had administered the first doses of its vaccine to young children in a separate study that involves kids from 6 months to less than 12 years old.
Johnson & Johnson, whose vaccine got U.S. authorization one month ago, has also been moving to include children in clinical trials. The company will test the vaccine in only a small number of adolescents initially, with plans to expand the study if it is shown to be safe, according to a spokesperson at Janssen, the Johnson & Johnson subsidiary that developed the vaccine. |
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Testing Still Very Important
We are seeing an uptick in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations among those ages 18 to 49 over the past two weeks in North Carolina. Anyone who has symptoms of COVID-19, has been around people outside of their household or thinks they have been exposed to the virus should get tested.
LOCATION CHANGE:
Starting on April 1, 2021, COVID-19 testing through our state vendor Optum Serve will no longer be at the UNC R7 parking lot (725 MLK Blvd, Chapel Hill) and will instead be located in a more convenient location at the Southern Human Services Center (SHSC) at 2501 Homestead Road, Chapel Hill, NC 27516.
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
Flyer in ENGLISH:
https://www.orangecountync.gov/DocumentCenter/View/13350/SM_Covid19Flyer_OrangeCountyHD_WeekdayTesting_ENGLISH
Flyer in SPANISH:
https://www.orangecountync.gov/DocumentCenter/View/13351/SM_Covid19Flyer_OrangeCountyHD_WeekdayTesting_SPANISH
Weekday Testing Chapel Hill:
COVID-19 testing is available every weekday Monday through Friday from 9am to 6pm at Southern Human Services Center (SHSC) at 2501 Homestead Road, Chapel Hill, NC 27516. Testing will take place in the large conference room inside the front entrance. Pre-registration is encouraged and may be done online:
https://lhi.care/covidtesting.
Flyer in ENGLISH:
https://www.orangecountync.gov/DocumentCenter/View/13709/Optum_Covid19Flyer_R7_WeekdayTesting_ENG
Flyer in SPANISH:
https://www.orangecountync.gov/DocumentCenter/View/13710/Optum_Covid19Flyer_R7_WeekdayTesting_SPA
There will be a few exceptions due to holidays, weather conditions, or other events. |
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OCHD Intern Ashlyn Clark Featured on
UNC Website
By Kristen Smith Young, University Communications
Monday, March 29th, 2021
When Carolina sophomore Ashlyn Clark first signed up for “Gillings on the Ground,” a program to train individuals on working with communities in disaster preparedness and relief, she didn’t know about the variety of opportunities where she could immediately start applying her new knowledge and skills.
But inspired by a local health department employee’s presentation, she reached out to Orange County Environmental Health Director Victoria Hudson to see how she could be part of the local response effort to COVID-19.
“[I was] just asking for a non-paid, experiential position that I could kind of get my feet wet, and I was really interested in Victoria as the environmental health director because I had that environmental health interest and motivation to learn more about that,” Clark said.
Clark, a medical anthropology and public policy double major from Denton, Texas, wasn’t a neophyte when it came to working directly with public health research. She spent her first year at Carolina assisting in a UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health research lab looking at antibiotic-resistant E.coli pollution and its effects on local groundwater and well resources across North Carolina.
“I was always interested in public health, and that really pushed me to look at the social aspects of why these specific wells were polluted, why these communities,” she said. “That was the undergraduate degree I was looking at going toward at Gillings before I decided to look at more of the behavioral side of things.”
Since October 2020, Clark has been volunteering for the Orange County Health Department, first with assessing the safety of drinking water and then assisting with business outreach as part of the department’s response to COVID-19.
“She tested water quality, made reports to the assigned field staff when non-compliance was observed, disseminated information and new signage, and answered ad hoc questions from operators and community clients like she was a seasoned pro,” Hudson noted.
Since the beginning of 2021, Clark has been helping local businesses promote their safe business practices. Clark said that she wanted businesses to participate since they had done so much to stay open. Her outreach will continue by leading a health department effort to ensure frontline workers have access to COVID-19 vaccinations.
“[There are] the businesses that might not have the resources to get registered or know that they are qualified for the vaccination, so it’s really pushing that community outreach and making sure that everybody in the community is aware of who is currently able to get vaccinated, basically to make sure we’re reaching every corner of the community, especially the businesses that have supported our community through this hardship,” Clark said.
Since she arrived at Carolina, Clark has known that she wanted to pursue public health as a career, but she initially thought it was all based in the hard sciences. Her volunteer role has opened her eyes to a different angle.
“It wasn’t until I started working with Victoria that I started understanding there’s that field of communication — personable relationships — that comes with some public health positions, where I don’t necessarily need to know all the scientific background. I just need to understand the social impacts of our society and the way that influences local communities,” she said. “Working with the health department and with Victoria has really allowed me to get out into the community and interact with people I never would have met otherwise and see their experiences and really understand what public health is.”
It’s not just in downtown Chapel Hill businesses and neighborhood pools where you’ll find Clark giving back to the community. She also spends time volunteering as part of the Carolina COVID-19 Student Service Corps, working at Carolina Together Testing Program centers at CURRENT Art Space and the Carolina Union. Clark also is part of the North Carolina Fellows program, where undergraduate students learn to maximize their leadership potential.
“Especially now in the COVID age, I feel like it’s really important to give back to your community when your community has been going through so much for so long,” Clark said.
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Orange County BIPOC Elected Officials stand in solidarity with Asian-American communities against racial violence and hate
The BIPOC elected officials of Orange County are deeply saddened by the growing harassment and hatred of our Asian sisters and brothers. We mourn with those whose loved ones were brutally murdered and all who have been targets of violence and hatred because of their race. We call on the community to join us in supporting our Asian sisters and brothers and speak out against racial violence and harassment and against any actions or speech that dehumanizes them and devalues their lives. We call on the community to remember this land is our land and this land is their land too and we commit ourselves to making Orange County, the State of North Carolina, and the nation, a place where everyone can live free of harassment and racial violence.
We acknowledge and support the call to action from the Chinese American Friendship Association for local communities to organize vigils and demonstrations to express condolences to the victims and to voice our strongest condemnation of racial hatred and violence.
Finally, we endorse the Hate Crimes Prevention Act which has been filed in the N.C. Senate by Senators Valerie Foushee, Jay Chaudhuri and Mujtaba Mohammed and will imminently be filed in the N.C. House by Representatives Verla Insko, Nasif Majeed, Marica Morey and Pricey Harrison. We encourage the full legislature to bring this bill to the floor and vote to protect our friends and neighbors in North Carolina.
In solidarity,
Joal H. Broun
Allen Buansi
Rani Dasi
Barbara M. Foushee
Valerie P. Foushee
Hongbin Gu
Jean Hamilton
Matthew Hughes
Tai T. Huynh
Jennifer Moore
Renée A. Price
Brenda Stephens
Deon Temne
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North Carolina COVID-19 Cases
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) reports 924,810 COVID-19 cases, 12,212 deaths, and 1,025 hospitalizations.
30.6% of North Carolina's population are at least partially vaccinated, and 20.8% are fully vaccinated.
There are currently 8,157 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 101 deaths in Orange County. 37.1% of Orange County residents are at least partially vaccinated, and 27.2% 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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