COVID-19

In many North Carolina counties, school staff aren't tracking vaccination rates of their faculty or staff, let alone requiring a vaccine, even though educators increasingly say they support mandates, according to a survey by the N.C. Watchdog Reporting Network.

WUNC’s 2021 Youth Reporters turned on their microphones to collect stories from their communities. Kayla Mady of Holly Springs, North Carolina talked to her best friend about how the pandemic has impacted their social skills as extroverts.

A North Carolina-based hospital system says more than 175 of its workers have been fired for failing to comply with its vaccination requirement.

For many vaccinated people, images of crowded emergency rooms have invoked anger. Some would like to see people who have been vaccinated and wearing masks get priority medical treatment at hospitals. They say just as hospitals routinely triage patients, why not include vaccination status as one of the factors in that triage?

Donovan Zimmerman is one of the leaders of the troupe behind the new show "Unfolding Seeds: Invocations of Transformation." He sits down with WUNC's Eric Hodge for a conversation.

At 3 p.m., Governor Roy Cooper and members of the state Coronavirus Task Force will share an update on COVID-19 with media and the public.

The development came a week after the school district allowed most of its more than 7,000 quarantined students to go back into the classroom before their 14-day isolation period had expired as long as they weren't symptomatic or infected.

Jeff Tiberii speaks with Dr. Jeffrey Engel, the North Carolina State epidemiologist from 2002 through 2009, and the state health director from 2009 to 2012, about North Carolina's history with vaccine hesitancy and misinformation.

As the highly-transmissible delta variant moves through the Lumbee community, many are now feeling the impact of the pandemic at a personal level.

COVID-19 has torn through the largely rural and racially-diverse community. In the past two weeks, 37 people have died from the disease. That represents more than 10% of those who have died from COVID-19 in the county since March of 2020.