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GVPH Weekly Update: COVID-19 Cases Continue Uptick

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Vance and Granville counties continue to rack up new COVID-19 cases, and the local health district reports a total of 1,376 new cases in the last seven days. The state figure stands at 28,474.

According to GVPH Director Lisa Harrison, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services notified local health departments that boosters for those ages 12-15 will be available beginning next week. Vaccines and boosters are available Monday-Friday from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. in Henderson at 115 Charles Rollins Road and beginning Monday, Jan. 10 at the new location in Granville County at 1028 College St. in Oxford, behind Granville Health System.

Both counties remain in the “high community transmission” category, with Vance at 25.5 percent positivity rate and Granville at 17.2 percent positivity rate. Both counties still fall below the state’s positivity rate, which currently is 31.2 percent.

Specifically, in the past week, Vance County has had 685 new cases and Granville reports 691 new cases, according to a weekly report from the Granville-Vance Health District.

There have been 9,935 cases of COVID-19 in Granville County and 8,648 cases of COVID-19 in Vance County for a total of 18,583 across the health district.

Granville County has documented 107 deaths as a result of COVID-19 and Vance County has a total of 104 deaths for a total of 211 deaths across the health district. Across North Carolina, 19,619 people have died of COVID-19.

“The numbers of cases of COVID-19 are higher than ever and still climbing in short order,” writes Health Director Lisa Harrison. She said that her department is “making an overall shift to paying closer attention to hospitalizations and deaths rather than cases as an indicator of overall risk. Just remember that hospitalization and death are also lagging indicators so given how MANY cases we are seeing, even if the majority of them are experiencing mild symptoms or no symptoms, the sheer numbers dictate that we will still see hospitalizations and potentially deaths increase in the coming weeks as well. Hospitalizations are up locally and statewide this week as the graphs show: https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/dashboard/hospitalizations.  Omicron is not to be ignored,” Harrison wrote in the weekly update.

 

 

 

 

 

Keep up-to-date by visiting the CDC Data Tracker by County and the NCDHHS COVID-19 Dashboard. Relevant graphs can be found at https://gvph.org/covid-19_dashboard/.  

Granville Health Department To Re-Open Monday At New Location

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The Granville-Vance Public Health office in Oxford is in the process of moving to its new location near the hospital and will re-open Monday, Jan. 10. All services that clients normally receive at the health department will be unavailable EXCEPT for residents who want a COVID-19 vaccine, according to www.gvph.com.

The new address for Environmental Health is 1028 College St.; the health clinic’s address is 1032 College St.; and the WIC office address is 1036 College St.

Both health department locations – 115 Charles Rollins Rd, Henderson and 101 Hunt Dr., Oxford – have COVID-19 vaccines available Monday-Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

 

West Oxford Students Bumped To Remote Learning Jan. 7, 10

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The spike in COVID-19 has prompted West Oxford Elementary School to cancel in-person learning for tomorrow (Friday) and Monday, Jan. 10. Instead, both days will be full virtual learning days, from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

But the Granville County Unit of the Boys & Girls Club that operates at West Oxford will be open to serve its registered club members on both days. The club will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Parents should send devices and bookbags with their students to the club, according to a post on the school’s social media site from BGC Chief Operating Officer Jacqueline Robinson.

School leaders posted on social media Thursday evening about the change, and offered several opportunities for parents and students for school assignments and for lunch pickup.

Students in Granville County Public Schools returned to school on Wednesday after the winter break.

The Facebook post stated, in part, that “nearly half of all of our teachers at our school are unable to report to work, mostly due to the pandemic.”

The lack of substitutes available further exacerbated the situation.

West Oxford students with an internet connection and a device are supposed to login to their Google classroom to get lessons and assignments at 9 a.m. Parents of students without a device or an internet connection can come to school after 11 a.m. to pick up an instructional packet. Parents who come after 3:30 p.m. will find packets in the self-serve stations.

The school plans to run regular bus routes about midday to deliver both instructional packets and meals. “These routes will run approximately five hours later than their normal pick-up time in the morning,” the post stated.

Parents also may stop by the school between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. to pick up a lunch free of charge for any student.

West Oxford serves Pre-K through grade 5 and is located at 412 Ivey Day Rd, Oxford.

Triangle North Grant Cycle Open For 2022; Deadline To Submit Letters Of Interest Mar. 1

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Triangle North Healthcare Foundation has announced the launch of its 2022 grant cycle, and is accepting letters of interest through March 1, 2022.

Nonprofit organizations, government agencies and schools are eligible to apply for funding projects that will provide positive impact in one or more of the five focus areas: Child Well-Being, Chronic Disease, Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders, Nutrition and Physical Activity, and Reproductive Health.

The link to the Foundation’s online grant portal is available at   http://www.tnhfoundation.org

Executive Director Val Short said funding local projects brings to life the foundation’s mission to encourage, support, and invest in quality efforts that measurably improve health in the areas it serves.

“Our hope is that the Foundation’s investment of grant funds in our communities will result in long lasting improvements in the health and wellbeing of our children and adults,” Short said in a press statement.

Since 2013, the foundation has invested more than $3.3 million in programs across the four-county region that includes Vance, Granville, Warren and Franklin.

Short and the foundation’s grants coordinator Carolyn Powell are available to discuss ideas for grant projects or to assist with grant writing.  Call 252.430.8532 to schedule an appointment.  Information about current and past funded programs and projects is also available on the website.

A regional healthcare grant-making organization based in Henderson, NC, Triangle North Healthcare Foundation was established in 2011, following the merge of Maria Parham Medical Center and Duke Lifepoint.

DOEDC Seeks Revitalization Input From Downtown Merchants

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UPDATE 01-10-22 at 6:30 p.m. —

From the DOEDC:

• Due to rising COVID concerns, this event has been postponed to February 23, 2022. The DOEDC would like to invite you to join the conversation about downtown revitalization in Oxford, and how we can plan and execute changes together. Join us Wednesday, February 23 for a presentation from The North Carolina League of Municipalities own Julie Metz; lunch will still be provided by Strong Arm. Watch your inbox for more information coming soon. We hope you’ll stop by and lend an ear. Let’s keep Oxford moving forward.

The Downtown Oxford Economic Development Corporation is hosting a meeting next week to hear from downtown merchants about next steps in downtown revitalization.

The event is scheduled to begin at noon on Tuesday, Jan. 11 at The Orpheum of Oxford. Lunch will be provided by Strong Arm Baking; participants who want to eat lunch should reserve their seat by Friday, Jan. 7.

Julie Metz, with the N.C. League of Municipalities, will be on hand to discuss her involvement with the city of Goldsboro as the downtown development director for more than 20 years. That city’s downtown – which once had a 75 percent vacancy rate – has been transformed, with business start-ups, private investment and building energy and excitement from the community.

The DOEDC invites merchants to join the conversation about downtown revitalization in Oxford, and to learn how best to plan and execute changes together.

For questions, email eat@strongarmbaking.com.

NCDOT Bike Helmet Program Puts Free Helmets On Kids’ Heads

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The goal of the state Department of Transportation’s annual bicycle helmet initiative is to reduce bicycle injuries and deaths. Applications are available now for agencies to get up to 100 free bike helmets for young cyclists.

As part of the initiative, applicants are encouraged to partner with government and non-government agencies to host bike safety events. Examples of partners include police and fire departments, parks and recreation departments, health departments and community centers, as well as churches and other non-governmental organizations.

Applications are due by 5 p.m. on Feb. 4, 2022, according to information from NCDOT. Applicants may request 25, 50, 75 or 100 helmets and the groups awarded are scheduled to receive the helmets by April 29, 2022.

The selection process has been revised and is no longer limited to government agencies. Helmets will be awarded and distributed once per calendar year in the spring and awardees will have the remainder of the calendar year to host their safety program and then provide a report within 30 days of the event.

The program was started in 2007 and is overseen by the DOT’s integrated mobility division. Money to fund the program comes from sales of the Share The Road specialty license plate. Since its inception, the initiative has provided thousands of helmets to low-income children – more than 30,000 in the past five years alone. Statistics show that less than half of all children wear a helmet while biking, but wearing a helmet can reduce the risk of severe brain injuries by almost 90 percent for children involved in bike accidents.

About 20 bicyclists die in biking accidents each year in North Carolina – one in six of those are under the age of 16. The use of bike helmets was found to reduce head injury by 48 percent, serious head injury by 60 percent, traumatic brain injury by 53 percent, face injury by 23 percent and the total number of cyclists killed or seriously injured by 34 percent.

Visit the NCDOT Bicycle Helmet Initiative webpage for more information and to download the application.

COVID-19 Cases Continue To Rise In Vance, Granville

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The Granville-Vance Health District reported Wednesday almost 400 new cases of COVID-19 in the past seven days across the two counties.

There have been 194 new cases in Vance County, and 202 new cases in Granville County, according to the report. Those numbers represent a 15.4 percent positivity rate in Vance and a 7.1 percent positivity rate in Granville.

GVPH Director Lisa Harrison noted, however, that those numbers likely will rise. “Lots of tests and lab entries are being made and transferred this week and we know these numbers will go up a significant amount in short order,” the report stated.

“The numbers reported today (Wednesday) from the state system above do not yet reflect the cases our team entered today which exceed another 200 cases reported to us,” Harrison said in a footnote included in the report.

All data, as well as outbreaks and clusters, are reported through the NC Electronic Disease Surveillance System and are available for review on the state’s data dashboard here: https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/.

According to the CDC COVID Data Tracker, the numbers reported by the state mean that both counties are considered in the “high community transmission” category.

To date, there have been 7,665 cases of COVID-19 in Vance and 8,901 cases in Granville County for a total of 16,566 across the health district.

Deaths as a result of COVID-19 are 104 in Vance and 107 in Granville, for a total of 211 deaths across the health district.

For those who may want to calculate percentages, the total population of Vance County is 44,535 and 60,443 for Granville County.

Visit CDC Data Tracker by County and the NCDHHS COVID-19 Dashboard find the most recent information about COVID-19. Relevant graphs from these dashboards are available on our website at https://gvph.org/covid-19_dashboard/

In Vance County:

  • 63 percent of those over the age of 5 have received at least one dose of their COVID-19 vaccine – 58 percent are fully vaccinated
  • 14 percent of those ages 5-11 have received at least one dose and 8 percent are fully vaccinated
  • 46 percent of those ages 12-17 have received at least one dose and 40 percent are fully vaccinated

In Granville County:

  • 67 percent over the age of 5 have received at least one dose of their COVID-19 vaccine and 63 percent are fully vaccinated
  • 16 percent of those ages 5-11 years have received at least one dose and 10 percent are fully vaccinated
  • 44 percent of those ages 12-17 have received at least one dose and 40 percent are fully vaccinated

GVPH has administered 35,338 vaccines – 18,248 first doses and 17,090 second doses, an increase of 52 from last week’s numbers of 35,286 total vaccines, including 18,219 first doses and 17,067 second doses.

The Local Skinny! Henderson Oxford Airport Flies High

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Chris Welsh likens the Henderson-Oxford Airport to a rest area along the interstate – when a traveler needs to stop, that blue road sign announcing that a rest area is ahead is a welcome sight.

Welsh and his wife, Amanda, have been the fixed-base operators at the airport for the past several years, and he said things are – pardon the pun – looking “up.” Traffic at the airport with its 5,500-foot-long runway is up, he said. And he points to a few reasons for why that is so.

Because the couple can offer maintenance on the aircraft – which other local airstrips do not provide – Welsh said pilots will fly in if they need to get something like a landing gear tire fixed.

But he also said they have seen an increase in small planes coming in since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I think a lot of businesses have started (using private aircraft) since COVID – we’re seeing more 4- and 6-seaters coming in for business,” he told John C. Rose today during Tuesday’s segment of The Local Skinny! “And Mako is flying all the time – at least three or four times a week, and I know they’re coming out here at night,” Welsh added, even though he and his wife typically are not there for their arrival.

The pilots communicate on the radio frequency, follow standard traffic patterns, land and then just park the aircraft and follow the sidewalk to the building and parking lot beyond.

Since beginning their jobs there, the Welshes have overseen a couple of project completions, including a runway lighting upgrade and an extra row of hangars, where 10 additional planes now call home.

Some larger aircraft also have flown in – like a King Air 12-passenger turboprop – that previously had used the airstrip in Clarksville, VA. But that runway was shortened by 900 feet recently, which makes landing a larger aircraft a bit more difficult.

“The landing is usually more of the problem,” Welsh said, “because you have to slow down, right?”

Revlon flies a Gulfstream aircraft that is similar in size to a commuter plane, Welsh said. It uses the airport regularly, along with private travelers.

“You could probably land a 737 here,” he said. The problem, however, comes after the landing. “It’s probably too heavy for the pavement,” and then there’s the issue of what kind of vehicle would be available on the ground to tow it.

That rest-area concept Welsh alluded to plays into the airport’s support role for nearby Raleigh-Durham International, which could divert aircraft to the Granville County airport if the need arises.

Raleigh has a couple of flight schools, and Welsh said more student pilots are using the local runway in their training.

“In the first 10 or 15 hours of learning, you don’t need any distractions,” Welsh said. He is a seasoned pilot himself and he also has a commercial license to operate a drone.

“If you’re practicing repetitive landings, you can do three or four here in an hour,” he noted. A student pilot would get half that amount at RDU – and they’d have the added stress of watching for incoming aircraft using the same runway.

Welsh said the airport is home to a couple of flying club airplanes – a Cessna and a Piper – that are based here as part of the RDU flying club. “You can join the club if you’re not a pilot,” Welsh said. “It’s basically the cheapest way to rent an airplane.” Individuals can use the planes to accumulate training hours toward their license, rent it to fly over the lake or take it to the beach for a couple of days. The planes can stay gone overnight, he said, but most of the time they’re tucked back in the hangars after each outing.

Visit www.flyhnz.com to learn more.

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Smart Start

TownTalk: Smart Start Year End Review

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The Franklin Granville Vance Smart Start Inc. annual report has been released and the agency’s executive director said his agency and staff undoubtedly have learned how to be flexible and adaptable as it continues to advocate for children, in spite of pandemic restrictions.

In a letter accompanying the 8-page report, FGV Executive Director Dr. Tony W. Cozart said the 2020-21 year had been “difficult but very gratifying as well.”

FGV’s fiscal manager, Garry Daeke, agreed wholeheartedly. Daeke spoke with John C. Rose Tuesday on Town Talk and said he was very happy to report that, despite the difficulties of the pandemic, FGV staff had been able to maintain relationships with both child-care providers as well as parents.

“We’ve been able to keep in contact and provide service and information to people,” he said, acknowledging that the one-on-one contacts have been limited, but FGV has found ways to do an end-around some challenges.

For instance, Daeke said FGV has been able to provide technical assistance via videotape and through increased filming of sessions. By filming programs and activities, FGV staff can critique and provide suggestions to help child-care providers with everything from how to set up a classroom to being financially efficient – staying safe and healthy at the same time.

There are 112 child-care programs in the three counties that FGV serves, Daeke said. “They’ve kept people working, because people need childcare.”

The agency gets most of its funding from the state (85-90 percent), and it has spent $907,689 to help parents pay for childcare in the past year, according to the report. The subsidy is available to parents who send their children to programs with a 4- or 5-star quality rating.

“We spend a great deal of money to provide a subsidy” to parents, Daeke said. FGV also supplements wages of teachers who stay in their jobs for a certain length of time and who continue to further their education. The report notes that 80 teachers received an average of $1016 in supplements in a six-month period.

“We spend a lot of money to make sure child care is high quality and that parents are able to access that child care,” Daeke said.

A number of programs that FGV supports don’t happen within the walls of a child-care center at all; rather, there are a variety of agencies that FGV contracts with that are quite successful as well.

Vance County’s adolescent parenting program that Annie Perry oversees, for example, focuses on keeping teenage moms in school so they can graduate. Daeke said Perry, a longtime program administrator, does an excellent job and consistently has graduates go on to continue their educations at Vance-Granville Community College or four-year universities.

“The main goals are to keep them in school and to prevent a second pregnancy. The program “helps them become the parent they need to be,” Daeke said. “We’ve had a lot of success over the years.”

Other programs like Parents as Teachers is a home visitation parenting program that operates primarily in Granville County through a partnership with Granville County Public Schools. And the Incredible Years program partners with the Vance Cooperative Extension to provide several sessions each year to work directly with parents to help them “be the very best parent you can be,” Daeke said. Although only in Vance County now, Daeke said he’s looking for grant funding to expand the program to Granville County and possibly Franklin County.

And a child-care health consultant has just come on board to visit child-care programs to help providers with health concerns. FGV has contracted through the Granville-Vance Health District to provide a nurse to help child-care providers, he said.

According to the report, total FGV expenditures for FY 2021 was $3,381,751. Almost three-fourths of that funding is used to ensure the availability and accessibility of high-quality childcare for children ages 0-5 years. That is done a variety of ways, including subsidies for working families through the Department of Social Services to help pay for childcare. It also administers the NC Pre-K program in Franklin County and offers wage incentives to retain childcare workers and ensure continuity of care.

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Fire Ant Quarantine Zone Grows To Include All Granville, Most Of Person

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As the imported red fire ant continues its march through North Carolina, N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services officials are expanding the quarantine zone to include all of Granville, as well as portions of Person and Caswell counties, effective Jan. 1, 2022.

That means that residents and business owners in these counties will need to obtain a permit before moving plants, sod and related equipment into or through non-infested areas. Certificates can be obtained from a local plant protection specialist or by contacting the Plant Protection Section at 800-206-9333 or 919-707-3730.

Items requiring a permit include nursery stock, sod, soil, hay and straw, logs or pulpwood with soil, and soil-moving equipment, according to information from NCDA.  Also, the movement of any other products, items or infested materials that present a risk of spread from areas that have fire ants to non-infested areas is prohibited.

“Failure to obtain the needed inspections and certifications may result in the issuance of a stop-sale notice and rejection or destruction of the regulated article,” said Bill Foote, director of the NCDA&CS plant industry division.  “Fire ants can be harmful to humans and livestock. It is important we continue proactive efforts to slow down fire ant movement into non-infested areas of the state.”

Fire ants can be found in the majority of the state’s 100 counties; most recently, fire ants have been confirmed in Jackson and Madison counties in the western part of the state.

The imported fire ant was first identified in Brunswick County in 1957. As it spread and became established, it was recognized as an aggressive pest of farmlands, pastures, residential areas and wildlife, Foote said. The imported fire ant is considered to be a nuisance and a health concern to humans, livestock and wildlife due to its painful sting.

For a map of the quarantine area, visit  https://www.ncagr.gov/plantindustry/Plant/entomology/documents/Imported_Fire_Ant_2022_Quarantine_Expansion_Proposal.pdf