NC is trying to use all of the COVID vaccine supply it gets each week, Cohen says
North Carolina health officials are trying to use up their entire supply of COVID-19 vaccine every week, Dr. Mandy Cohen, the state’s health secretary, said Thursday.
“Our goal is to make sure we are using up all of the vaccine that is given to the state before the next shipment comes so we can demonstrate to the federal government that we are using our vaccine,” Cohen said.
The state is receiving about 120,000 first doses of vaccine each week, Cohen said. Health departments and hospitals can typically expect to receive about the same amount of vaccine from week to week, but the state is encouraging them to keep waiting lists when they run out.
As of Wednesday night, 573,130 doses of vaccine had been administered in North Carolina, including 424,274 first doses, 76,293 second doses and 72,563 total doses in long-term care facilities as part of the federal government’s partnership with CVS and Walgreens.
About half of North Carolina’s first doses have been administered since Jan. 11. That came shortly after Cohen and Gov. Roy Cooper announced several efforts to speed up the rollout, including large-scale vaccine sites, sending National Guard personnel to help with vaccinations and sending additional doses to places that had proven they could use it quickly.
“We’ve worked through getting out the vaccines that we have on the shelf,” Cohen said, adding that it is going to become more common to hear hospitals and health departments saying that they need more doses of the vaccine.
North Carolina is also starting to direct vaccine to federally qualified health centers and rural health centers, Cohen said Thursday.
Typically, Cohen said, providers learn on Friday how much vaccine they will receive the following week. Those providers should trying to use all of their vaccine on hand by Monday or Tuesday, Cohen said, with new shipments generally arriving on Wednesday.
Accessing the vaccine
State officials announced one effort that could help about 30,000 people access a COVID-19 vaccination site. The N.C. Department of Transportation will send about $2.5 million in federal coronavirus relief funds to local transit agencies to pay for trips to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Lack of transportation shouldn’t be the reason someone doesn’t receive their shot,” Cohen said.
Each North Carolina county has a local transit agency, and they will all receive funds, according to a DOT release. Agencies can use the money to transport people who are either receiving the vaccine or helping someone who is.
Eric Boyette, the state DOT secretary, said a one-way trip through a transit agency typically costs about $22, with someone who is receiving either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine needing two trips. Each vaccine requires two doses over 21 or 28 days, depending on the vaccine.
COVID-19 deaths
North Carolina reported 139 additional COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, the sixth time the state has reported over 100 deaths in a day in January.
Since the turn of the new year, the state Department of Health and Human Services has reported 1,519 coronavirus-related deaths. That’s over 18% of the deaths reported statewide since the pandemic began in March. A total of 8,339 North Carolinians have died due from the virus since then.
Along with Thursday, the state surpassed 100 reported deaths in a day on Jan. 7, 8, 10, 13 and 15.
Over the last week, the state has reported an average of 73 COVID-19 deaths per day. This has decreased from a pandemic high of 94 on Jan. 10, but has increased from the average a month ago when it was 55.
“We are seeing some progress in our key metrics,” Cohen said Thursday. “Now, they remain much higher than we want to see, but they are stabilizing at the moment. Your hard work is paying off.”
Cohen pointed to case levels and the percentage of positive cases, which are still significant, but down from their peaks of just a couple weeks ago.
Along with the reported deaths, DHHS reported 7,187 new cases on Thursday. The seven-day average of daily new cases is now at 6,739. A week ago it was over 8,300.
Hospitalizations continue to decrease, and are now at 3,666. A week ago they were over 3,900.
They’ve increased over the last few weeks, though. A month ago there were 2,824 hospitalizations in North Carolina.
Among the tests reported on Tuesday, the latest day with data available, 10.3% of tests returned positive. That’s down from the pandemic high of 17.1% reported on Jan. 4, but it’s still more than double the 5% or lower that state health officials want.
Case and hospitalization data reported by DHHS is preliminary and subject to change upon further investigation.
NC updates COVID-19 county alert system
North Carolina updated its COVID-19 county alert system on Thursday.
The system, designed to gauge spread on the county level, is color-coded where, starting with the worst level of community spread, red is critical, orange is substantial and yellow is significant community spread.
All but one county in the state is classified as red or orange. Greene County in eastern North Carolina is the lone yellow county.
Among the other counties, 86 are red and 13 are orange.
Two weeks ago, when the system was last updated, there were 84 red counties, 12 orange and four yellow.
In the Triangle, Wake, Durham, Orange and Chatham counties are classified as orange, or substantial community spread.
Johnston County is a red county.
President Biden’s COVID-19 orders
After his inauguration Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed several executive orders addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. Asked about those Thursday, Cohen said they fit with North Carolina’s approach to the public health crisis.
Cohen singled out executive orders requiring masks to be worn in federal buildings and on federal lands, as well as on airplanes and other forms of transportation.
“Masks are the number one thing we need to continue to do to slow the spread of this virus. We know how this virus spreads. We know that masks work,” Cohen said.
Cohen also said that she and Cooper have already been able to share concerns about the vaccine rollout with members of the Biden administration. Cohen specifically pointed to data about the vaccine rollout publicly available on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, information that has consistently shown North Carolina lagging in the rate at which it is vaccinating people.
“The CDC data for North Carolina does not reflect the data we are seeing here in the state,” Cohen said.. “You see our own vaccine dashboard shows over half a million vaccinations. The CDC does not reflect that.”
North Carolina officials have flagged the issue for the CDC, Cohen said, to see whether information is breaking down somewhere or if it can be updated more quickly.
This story was originally published January 21, 2021 at 12:42 PM.