Press Releases

In response to actions taken by the Union County Board of Education, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services issued a letter to the Board’s Chair outlining required COVID-19 control measures all schools in the state must implement to protect student, staff and community health and noting that failure to comply may prompt legal action.

Public health officials with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services are urging North Carolinians to protect themselves, their families and those around them by getting vaccinated against Influenza as the state enters flu season while experiencing a surge of COVID-19 caused by the Delta variant.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services is seeing a sharp increase in COVID-19 clusters among school sports teams. For the period between July 1 and Sept. 2, 2021, clusters among school sports teams accounted for 45% of all clusters in North Carolina middle and high schools, despite most school sports activities not beginning until August as schools began the fall semester. School sports teams are urged to follow NCDHHS guidance for youth sports.

North Carolina’s $100 Summer Card program will end Tuesday, Aug. 31. As part of its ongoing effort to get more North Carolinians vaccinated and safely bring summer back, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has been offering $100 Summer Cards at select locations in various counties across the state. Cards were distributed to offset the time and transportation costs of getting vaccinated.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services yesterday released new data in the weekly respiratory surveillance report showing that unvaccinated people were 15.4 times, or 1,540 percent, more likely to die from COVID-19 during the four-week period ending Aug. 21, 2021. This comes as the state hit a pandemic high on Aug. 26 with 912 adults in the ICU with COVID-19. The number of COVID-19 patients on ventilators also reached a record high at 574.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, which will Pfizer is calling Comirnaty, for the prevention of COVID-19 disease in individuals 16 years of age and older.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has launched TeenVaxFacts.com – a website dedicated to providing teens with the information, tools and resources they need to educate themselves, their friends and their family members about the benefits of COVID-19 vaccines.

As COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations surge across North Carolina, the use of monoclonal antibodies for treatment of COVID-19 increased by 18-fold since late June from 100 administrations for the week of June 23 to 1,874 for the week of Aug. 11. Statewide, there are more than 130 sites offering monoclonal antibodies to treat COVID-19 as this treatment can decrease the likelihood of hospitalization related to COVID-19.

North Carolinians who are moderately to severely immunocompromised and received the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines can now begin receiving an additional dose to better protect themselves from COVID-19, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services announced today.

North Carolina providers have now administered more than 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, with vaccinations trending upward as the highly contagious Delta variant of the virus spreads through the state, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services announced today.