Coronavirus live updates: Here’s what to know in North Carolina on Dec. 20
We’re tracking the most up-to-date information about the coronavirus in North Carolina. Check back for updates.
Cases surpass 479,000
At least 479,168 people in North Carolina have tested positive for the coronavirus and 6,224 have died, according to state health officials.
The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services on Sunday reported 6,900 new COVID-19 cases, up from 6,164 reported the day before and the third-highest daily total since the start of the pandemic.
Forty coronavirus-related deaths were reported Sunday. December has been North Carolina’s deadliest month during the pandemic, The News & Observer reported on Saturday.
At least 2,748 people in North Carolina were hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Sunday.
About 10.6% of tests were reported positive as of Friday, the latest day for which data are available.Health officials have said that number should be 5% or lower to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Demand soars as food banks lose federal support
Local food banks are struggling to meet demand as more families than ever are turning to them due to the coronavirus pandemic and as a key federal program has run out of money early.
President Donald Trump’s administration in May launched the $4.5 billion Farmers to Families Food Box program, which was set to run through Dec. 31. But demand and a shortage of federal money caused it to end early in some parts of the country, which included companies that serve North Carolina.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a statement to The Washington Post that the latest round of less funding “resulted in some non-profits being unable to participate and fewer box deliveries.”
David Juarez Torres, director of the Durham Community Food Pantry, told The News & Observer they’ve already exhausted their supply of Farmers to Families boxes and won’t be able to get more this month.
“We’re not going to stop our operations,” Juarez Torres told The N&O. “But the reality is that our families will probably be receiving less food up until we’re able to get back into that.”
Charlotte school moves remote after outbreak
A Charlotte-area charter school has paused in-person learning at multiple campuses until Jan. 11 due to COVID-19.
Lincoln Charter’s Lake Norman campus has seen a spike in COVID-19 cases following Thanksgiving.
“Unfortunately, I believe Thanksgiving break traveling to see family members is a key factor in what we’re experiencing,” Jonathan Bryant, chief administrator at Lincoln Charter School, told his school board at a Dec. 11 emergency meeting, according to a recording of the meeting on the school website.
The board approved a pause in in-person learning until Jan. 11 at the school’s Lincolnton and Denver campuses after Bryant reported a first-time COVID-19 spread in the school buildings.
Lincoln Charter is a public K-12 school that draws students from 13 counties.
Congresswoman says teachers should be among first vaccinated
U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, a Democrat from Charlotte, told the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a Friday letter that teachers should be among the first groups to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Prioritizing COVID-19 vaccinations for K-12 educators and school personnel recognizes the essential work of these individuals,” she wrote in the letter, The Charlotte Observer reported Saturday.
She wrote that doing so would make for “a safer return to in-person instruction” and provide “the means necessary for tens of millions of workers to support the economy.”
States are in charge of vaccine distribution, but Adams wrote the CDC “plays an important role in informing the strategies employed to do so.”
Front-line health care workers across the country have started getting the shot after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer’s vaccine for emergency use.
NC prison becomes coronavirus hotspot
Nash Correctional Institution in Eastern North Carolina went from having zero COVID-19 cases in November to more than 140 as of Friday.
At least 149 of the prison’s 630 inmates have been infected, and one person has died.
Prison spokesman John Bull told The Charlotte Observer they don’t know how the coronavirus entered the prison.
Most prison outbreaks elsewhere in the state seem to have come from staff members who picked it up in their communities, the Observer reported. Some inmates say there hasn’t been enough testing, though Bull said 500 tests were done in the prison this month.
“I understand the prison system is understaffed,” Michele Perry, who has a friend at Nash, told the Observer. “But this seems at best neglectful.”
This story was originally published December 20, 2020 at 10:08 AM.
