News Room

North Carolina’s COVID-19 metrics don’t bode well for the future. Although not as concerning, the numbers don’t look so great for Wilkes County either. Public health experts say the extent to which North Carolinians rise to the occasion with social distancing, facial coverings and other safety measures will have a great bearing on whether conditions here become as bad as they have elsewhere before a vaccine for the virus becomes available for mass distribution. This isn’t expected until 2021.

North Carolinians know more about COVID-19 hospitalizations than they did a week ago. But data critical to the fight against COVID-19 remain missing from North Carolina’s dashboard, researchers say. North Carolina’s new dashboard shows a regional picture of hospital capacity and COVID-19 hospitalizations. The state began breaking down COVID-19 hospitalizations by region and bed type on Friday, July 17.

A new STD is afflicting the world. It infects the young and old, the rich and poor, people of all races and educations. It has challenged our nation’s health care system, wreaked havoc on our economy, infected more than 3.5 million Americans and resulted in more than 140,000 deaths — and it’s still spreading. We all know what this STD is: COVID-19. And yes, it is an STD, a “socially transmitted disease.”

The Covid-19 pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in global supply chains of medical supplies, which stoked public fear over shortages of essential medicines and medical supplies. As the world is focusing on the development of vaccines to combat the latest coronavirus, we shall not lose sight of the delivery of these vaccines, especially when there is a lack of a coordinated medical supply chain in the U.S.

Behind the news about resurging coronavirus cases and the debate about wearing face coverings in the U.S., a global race is underway to develop Covid-19 vaccine to quell the pandemic. As of July 15, 2020, there were 163 vaccines against the coronavirus and 23 of them were undergoing human trials. Before this race ends, we must start thinking about the endgame. The underlying health risks have prompted the U.S. government to promise delivery of 300 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine by January 2021 under Operation Warp Speed.