Chronicles of the pandemic: Carolina Meadows, 2020-21
"A collection of stories, poems, memoirs, photographs, and other reminiscences from residents and staff at Carolina Meadows during the pandemic of 2020-21."
Named event or history
Closures, schools, the county health department’s response, mutual aid, and the pandemic’s unequal weight.
8 indexed records are connected with this event.
Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.
"A collection of stories, poems, memoirs, photographs, and other reminiscences from residents and staff at Carolina Meadows during the pandemic of 2020-21."
Dated events connected with this event: sixteen of 27, the highlights and the earliest of the rest, in date order. See all 27 in the chronology →
Mutual Aid Carrboro partnered with NC Piedmont DSA to raise money for workers sent home without pay, running a solidarity fund for emergencies such as evictions and utility shutoffs. Applications were offered in Spanish, English and Chinese, with interpreter lines for Karen, Burmese and Kinyarwanda speakers.
Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro declared states of emergency on March 13, 2020, and the county and its three towns ordered residents to stay home from March 27. UNC moved undergraduate classes online in August 2020 after campus clusters. The county emergency, extended more than a dozen times, expired on May 1, 2022.
Part of COVID-19 in Orange County, 2020–2022 · 2 events
CHCCS, the Town of Chapel Hill, PORCH and volunteers began handing out free meals to students as schools closed, starting from about 20 sites. By December 21, 2020 the program had distributed more than 900,000 meals from 37 sites.
Orange County government and the Towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro declared states of emergency to prepare for COVID-19, allowing emergency procedures and funding. The county declaration, extended more than a dozen times, stayed in force until May 1, 2022.
People: Penny Rich · Lydia Lavelle
Governor Roy Cooper closed all North Carolina public schools for at least two weeks from Monday, March 16, 2020, shutting both Orange County districts. CHCCS then began online classes for grades 6-12 and sent learning packets home for grades K-5 at the end of March while serving meals to students.
With its buildings closed, the library kept the Hillsborough and Carrboro book drops and phone reference running, stopped charging late fees, and from March 18 set out a free book and DVD shelf outside the Main Library in Hillsborough.
The health department announced that Orange County residents had tested positive for COVID-19 at the State Laboratory of Public Health and were isolating at home. Health Director Quintana Stewart said the response was shifting from containment to mitigation.
People: Penny Rich · Quintana Stewart
Orange County, with Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough, ordered residents to stay home except for essential needs from 6 p.m. on March 27, 2020, three days before the statewide order took effect. Set to run until April 30, it was extended to May 8 to match the state order.
People: Penny Rich · Quintana Stewart
Executive Order 121, signed March 27, 2020, took effect at 5 p.m. on March 30 and ordered North Carolinians to stay home except for essential work and activities, capping gatherings at 10 people. Orange County's joint order had begun three days earlier.
Orange County and the Towns of Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough opened a Housing Helpline in April 2020 to connect residents with emergency rent, utility and deposit assistance. The county's Emergency Housing Assistance program paid out $2.5 million to 1,005 residents in 2020, and an Eviction Diversion Program followed in July 2020.
The health department reported that a resident in their 70s under hospice care at PruittHealth-Carolina Point, one of two long-term care facilities with outbreaks, had died of COVID-19 complications. The county then had 104 confirmed cases, and PruittHealth had at least 86 positive cases among residents and staff.
People: Quintana Stewart
PORCH, the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina and the Town of Chapel Hill ran a drive-through food distribution in the Chapel Hill Public Library's lower parking lot, serving 576 households, or 2,391 people, with about 40 volunteers.
Orange County and its towns extended the local state of emergency through August 31, 2020 and required face coverings from 5 p.m. on June 12 when people could not keep six feet apart.
The Orange County Schools board voted unanimously to begin the 2020-21 year with remote-only classes for at least the first four weeks, on the recommendation of Superintendent Monique Felder.
The CHCCS board unanimously accepted interim Superintendent Jim Causby's recommendation to keep classes virtual through at least January 15, 2021. On December 18, 2020 the board kept remote learning in place through at least February.
UNC-Chapel Hill began in-person classes on August 10, 2020, reported four COVID-19 clusters in residence halls, private student housing and a fraternity within days, and on August 17 announced that undergraduate classes would move online from August 19. Campus test positivity rose from 2.8 percent to 13.6 percent in one week.
Part of COVID-19 in Orange County, 2020–2022 · 2 events
People: Kevin M. Guskiewicz
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