COVID vaccine live updates: Here’s what to know in North Carolina on Sept. 4
%20(1)%20(2)%20(1)%20(1).jpg "Roughly 61% of North Carolina adults are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, data show.")
We’re tracking the most up-to-date information about the coronavirus and vaccines in North Carolina. Check back for updates.
83 COVID-related deaths added
At least 1,237,393 people in North Carolina have tested positive for the coronavirus, and at least 14,708 have died since March 2020, according to state health officials.
The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services on Friday reported 8,590 new COVID-19 cases, up from 7,901 on Thursday.
Eighty-three new coronavirus-related deaths were added on Thursday. The state health department doesn’t specify the dates on which newly reported deaths occurred.
At least 3,800 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Friday, including 930 adult patients being treated in intensive care units, health officials said.
As of Wednesday, the latest date with available information, 11.7% of coronavirus tests were reported positive. Health officials say 5% or lower is the target rate to slow the spread of the virus.
Roughly 66% of adults in North Carolina have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and about 61% have been fully vaccinated. State officials round vaccination numbers to the nearest whole number.
August saw sharp increase in Charlotte-area COVID deaths
The number of coronavirus-related deaths in August was about four times higher than the July death toll in the Charlotte area.
Almost 70 Mecklenburg County residents died of virus-related causes last month.
The county added 26 deaths in the past week and reported 22 deaths the week before, data show.
Early Friday, Mecklenburg’s coronavirus-related death toll stood at 1,072. Most of the patients who died were 60 or older and had underlying health problems, The Charlotte Observer reported.
Schools getting money for cafeteria worker bonuses
North Carolina education leaders approved setting aside coronavirus relief money to give bonuses to school cafeteria workers.
“Staffing shortages in the school nutrition programs in the PSUs (public school units) are a serious problem,” said Lynn Harvey, director of school nutrition and school operations at the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. “Some PSUs are reporting shortages of 20 to 25%.”
The State Board of Education decision means $10 million in federal funding will go to new and existing school nutrition employees. Some workers have left for private-sector positions, The News & Observer reported.
“The work of North Carolina’s school nutrition teams over the past year has been nothing short of remarkable,” State Superintendent Catherine Truitt said in a news release. “Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, school nutrition personnel went above and beyond to provide meals to students, whether that was through extended hours or home deliveries.”
COVID postpones NC high school football rivalry game
The resurgence of COVID-19 due to the delta variant forced two longstanding North Carolina high school football rivals to postpone Friday night’s game.
Mike Wilbanks, Shelby High football coach and athletic director, told The (Shelby) Star that “a bunch of” Crest High players were quarantined due to contact tracing. That means they were in close contact with someone who tested positive for the disease.
The teams have played each other 52 times since the rivalry began in 1968, according to the newspaper.
COVID leads six schools near Charlotte to move to remote learning
Six schools near Charlotte temporarily are transitioning to at-home learning due to COVID-19 infections.
Students at Central Elementary School, East Iredell Middle School, Lakeshore Middle School, North Iredell High School and West Iredell Middle School are set to return to classrooms on Sept. 13, The Charlotte Observer reported.
“Our number one priority is to continue with face-to-face learning,” Boen Nutting, a spokesperson for Iredell-Statesville Schools, said in a news release. “Sending students home will hopefully mitigate the spread of COVID and allow us to come back healthy.”
The decision to switch schools to remote instruction was made Thursday, the same day the district began requiring face masks.
While the district didn’t share updated numbers in its announcement, Iredell-Statesville previously said 583 students were in quarantine from Aug. 20 to 26. That represented about 2.85% of all students, the Observer reported.
Also making a switch was Christ the King Catholic High School in Huntersville, which transitioned to remote learning on Wednesday. Students are scheduled to go back into classrooms on Sept. 8.
The school, which has about 340 students, reported 26 cases across different grade levels.
“We believe it is prudent to proactively shift to remote learning to limit any potential virus spread at the school,” Principal Carl Semmler told parents in a letter. “We will continue to monitor active cases, quarantines and contact tracing to ensure we have the broadest possible understanding of the situation.”
Long lines expected for Labor Day weekend as air traffic rebounds
Charlotte Douglas International Airport and Raleigh-Durham International Airport are expecting crowds this Labor Day weekend as coronavirus cases surge.
As health officials urge unvaccinated people to skip traveling for the holiday, the Charlotte airport estimates it will see more than 200,000 passengers come through.
RDU expects about 120,000 passengers, just 6,000 fewer than in 2019, prior to the pandemic.
Most people traveling from Charlotte are leaving Friday, when an estimated 27,800 local passengers will fly out. That’s lower than before the pandemic, when 28,000 to 31,000 travelers departed, data show.
But airport traffic has started to rebound since early last year, when COVID-19 hit the travel industry hard.
“In July — the most recent month of passenger data available — passengers boarding planes at the Charlotte airport surpassed 2019 levels for the first time since the pandemic hit NC early last year,” The Charlotte Observer reported.
The Raleigh airport expects traffic to drop off significantly after the weekend. Over the summer months, leisure travel rebounded but business travel, which makes up much of the airport’s traffic the rest of the year, is still significantly below pre-pandemic levels.
2 school districts near Charlotte see spike in COVID, quarantines among students, staff
At least two Charlotte-area school districts on Friday reported a dramatic rise in the number of students, teachers and staff who tested positive for COVID-19 or were quarantined, as the more highly contagious delta variant races through communities.
COVID numbers more than quadrupled in Iredell-Statesville Schools and more than doubled this week in Union County Public Schools, according to new data from the school districts Friday.
In Iredell-Statesville Schools, active positive COVID cases soared from 69 last week to 286 this week, spokeswoman Boen Nutting said in an email to The Charlotte Observer.
The number of ISS students quarantined because of close contact with someone who tested positive for the disease skyrocketed from 583 last week to 2,476 this week, she said.
Masks are still optional in Union County Public Schools, where the number of students and staff quarantined this week rose to 5,410, from nearly 2,000 the previous week, according to the school system’s COVID-19 dashboard.
The number of positive cases in the district jumped to 367 this week, compared with 176 the week before, the dashboard shows.
Evictions high in some vulnerable neighborhoods in Charlotte area
During six months of the coronavirus pandemic, Mecklenburg County evictions happened most frequently in vulnerable neighborhoods.
Though a federal moratorium prevented some from losing their homes, a Charlotte Journalism Collaborative investigation “found evictions during the pandemic occurred most often in ZIP codes with higher rates of poverty, higher Black populations and less housing investment than the county, overall.”
ZIP codes 28262, 28212 and 28216 saw evictions about “three times as often as the county average,” according to a review of 700 eviction records between October 2020 and March 2021, The Charlotte Observer reported Friday.
Federal unemployment benefits to end
Federal coronavirus-related jobless benefits are set to run out this week.
Some who are on unemployment in North Carolina could see $300 cuts or lose their benefits altogether.
The benefits expire Saturday, a change that’s expected to impact more than 10,000 people in the state. Affected programs include: Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation and Mixed Earners Unemployment Compensation.
