Approved Minutes of June 25, 2025

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MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH June 25, 2025 (unpasteurized) milk; a series of Mental Health Mondays being hosted in Hillsborough; and North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality efforts to remove hydrilla, an invasive aquatic plant, from the Eno River. Mr. Whitaker asked if the website updates are being made for both mobile and desktop formats, to which Ms. Hough clarified that the Orange County Government website is currently only available in desktop format, as converting it into a second format would be expensive and would need to be applied to the full county website, not just the Health Department. Ms. Hough added that in addition to improving navigation, one of the major priorities is to ensure that all PDFs and images have alt text and can be read by screen readers for individuals with low or no vision. Dr. Royce commented that the website improvements are noticeable, and Ms. Hough encouraged board members to share any further suggestions or feedback with her. Dr. Jonnal commented that measles outbreaks will be coming soon and that she feels concerned and a bit embarrassed, as her kids go to a private, screen-free school that also has a low vaccination rate and is likely to be an epicenter in an outbreak. She added that she is trying to link the school administrators to medical experts such as Medical Director Dr. Erica Pettigrew to help promote measles education. She said that she hopes that there is still time to avert this. Dr. Royce noted that vaccine hesitancy seems to be a very psychological or"groupthink" phenomenon, which worries her. Dr. Jonnal said that Mike DeFranco, Public Health Nurse for the Communicable Disease Team, worked a miracle during the COVID-19 pandemic and got parents at local schools with high vaccine hesitancy to consider vaccination against COVID and to take it seriously. Dr. Pickett wondered about the legal obligation for private schools to promote vaccine education to their students or the potential liability that they could face if many children get sick, to which Commissioner Fowler explained that they are not legally required to mandate vaccines and that while public schools will stop students who are not in vaccine compliance from attending, private schools will not. Dr. Royce added that people can also seek a vaccine exemption. In response to Dr. Royce's question, Ms. Stewart clarified that the recent pertussis outbreak has been concentrated in public schools, not private schools. Commissioner Fowler commented that awareness and testing are also relevant, as pertussis is frequently in circulation, but people are not often tested for it, leading to an undercount of cases. Dr. Royce suggested that the Board of Health write a letter promoting vaccines for children in all schools; Mr. Whitaker agreed and said that this would likely be an easy lift. In response to Dr. Jonnal's question, Dr. Pettigrew said that there are many preexisting resources about measles and measles vaccines available and that the board could share some alongside their letter. Dr. Royce offered to work on a draft, and the group agreed that they could work on something over email during the summer break, as time is of the essence and they did not want to wait until August to act on this. Media items were in the packet, which focused on Orange County's events, our involvement in various efforts, and various public health topics. B. Health Directors Report Ms. Stewart presented her report to the Board. Below are brief highlights of her report. • It has been an intense period for the Communicable Diseases team; as mentioned several times throughout the meeting, North Carolina has its first confirmed measles S:\Managers Working Files\BOH\Agendas &Abstracts\2025 Agenda and Abstracts/ June Page 6