Final Minutes of January 26, 2022

Browse Search

MINUTES - Draft ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH January 26, 2022 • Ms. Stewart will be reaching out to the Board regarding getting back on track with BOH Subcommittee meetings so that the Strategic Plan can be finalized. A. COVID-19 Update Quintana Stewart, Health Director, gave an update on the COVID-19 status in Orange County (OC) as well as took questions from the Board. Some highlights are below. • In OC, there were 3 new deaths in the last 2 weeks, which equals a total of 115 deaths. • There are 21,774 cases COVID cases in OC. • There's still a surge with Omicron in our community. • In the last 7 days, there's been 1610 new cases and 4087 new cases in the last 14 days. • During the week of 12/9-12/15, 33% of new cases were of those fully vaccinated. • The vaccine is working and is still reducing severe illness and death. • There have been 116,070 people (78%) who have received at least their 1s' dose. There are 111,324 people (75%) that are considered fully vaccinated. • The DHHS website has added new data regarding vaccinations. It provides data on those that have received an additional dose; however, it doesn't differentiate whether it's a booster or simply an additional dose due to being immunocomprised. There have been 64,757 people that have received a 31d shot. • The guidance has changed on when a booster shot should be given. For Moderna and Pfizer, it's 5 months. For those that received the J & J vaccine, they should get their booster after 2 months. • For the general public, the state is no longer conducting case investigations and contact tracing. Leadership from DHHS has stated that only 1/3 of those called for contact tracing answered and only 1/10 of those called for case investigations were answered. Contact tracing and case investigations will continue for high-risk communities such as LTCF, K-12 schools and daycares. • There had been many complaints and issues with the Hillsborough state testing vendor StarMed. Those concerns were made known to the state. StarMed will be exiting the end of this month. Mako will be the new state vendor beginning Jan 31sc • Optum, the state testing vendor in Chapel Hill, is performing satisfactorily as it seems to have a better registration process than StarMed. There is still high demand and volume. • The CDC guidance has changed as only 5 days of isolation are required regardless of vaccination status. After those 5 days, an individual can go back to work/school if symptoms have resolved but they will need to wear a mask. • OCHD sent a press release about high quality masks. Ms. Stewart thanked Ms. Prelipp for getting out the messaging. Ms. Stewart stated that the goal is to have a well-fitted mask. • OCHD received a shipment of Makrite N95 masks (approx. 14k) from the state. Dana Crews volunteered to assist with getting the distribution plan underway. Town & community partners will get masks to distribute to those that in need. Allowing our partners to get the masks and distribute them amongst their community members is best, as they'll be able to provide them to those families in need. The partners did not want this publicized as this may prevent those in their communities from getting the masks due to others attempting to obtain masks designated for their community members in need. • The Hillsborough Library will serve as a public site for mask distribution. The Inter-Faith Council for Social Service (IFC) will do the same in Carrboro. Local pharmacies will be receiving masks from the federal government. S:\Managers Working Files\BOH\Agenda &Abstracts\2022 Agenda &Abstracts/ January Page 5