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The state also recently opened more mass testing sites, including one at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary. Healthcare leaders across the state are pleading with the public to get vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19.

The state Department of Health and Human Services reported 19,620 positive cases on Saturday — the third record day-over-day increase for the pandemic last week.

North Carolina hospitals are reporting a slow, but steady increase in hospitalizations from COVID-19 as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads.

¼ª²ÊÍøÍøÕ¾ health reporter Jason deBruyn reviews some of the biggest stories in health care news in North Carolina from 2021.

At the beginning of November, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services reported less than half of the funds had been either spent or obligated to schools for reimbursements. The funds must be used by the end of June.

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.

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?

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.

New data shows that most people dying from COVID-19 in North Carolina are unvaccinated. This comes as hospitalizations are hitting a record high in the state.

¼ª²ÊÍøÍøվ’s education reporter Liz Schlemmer sifts through the details about whether schools might — or can — begin requiring students to be vaccinated against COVID-19.