Happy Friday!

Enjoy your NCMS Morning Rounds.

  April 10, 2020

Child Care Resources for Essential Workers

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) and the Child Care Resource and Referral Network wants to ensure that all essential workers have safe care for their children and want to make sure the cost of care isn’t a barrier, so they are offering financial assistance to families with need.

Essential workers include:
• emergency and first responders,
• hospital staff and front-line health care providers,
• nursing and adult group home staff,
• child care program staff,
• food service staff,
• and others working to keep our communities safe and healthy as we respond to COVID-19.

They are also prioritizing emergency care for children who receive child welfare services, are homeless, or are in unstable or unsafe living arrangements.

To help essential workers access these child care services, there is a hotline – 1-888-600-1685. Since the hotline was set up on March 24, more than 1,400 children have been connected to care so their parents can report to work. These flyers in English and Spanish also can be downloaded and distributed to spread the word about emergency child care options for essential workers.

Helping Smokers Quit – Now More than Ever

With the spread of COVID-19, a virus that impacts the lungs, now is an important time to encourage your patients who smoke to quit. Here are several resources to help you help them.

The University of North Carolina School of Medicine’s Department of Family Medicine recently issued a news release highlighting the fact that people with any underlying lung condition, including people who smoke, have much higher rates of death if they become infected with COVID-19. Smoking weakens an individual’s lung function, and because of the way COVID-19 attacks the lungs, this increases a smoker’s risk of dying from serious respiratory infection from the virus. Read the release.

Physicians and PAs can promote QuitlineNC to people who want to quit smoking or vaping to reduce their risk. Have them visit www.quitlinenc.com or call 1-800-Quit-Now (1-800-784-8669).

CATCH My Breath, part of the Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH) launched a new resource on vaping and lung health, which is useful for parents on how to speak with children about vaping and how it compromises lung health and immunity. Access the resources here.

Creative Med Students Offer Kids Educational Fun

Two North Carolina medical students, Logan Beyer and Emily Kragel, have used their current downtime to put their knowledge and creativity to use by creating ‘Coloring for COVID-19.’ The series of coloring books for kids seeks to “provide a fun activity for kids, and to hopefully ease some fear and anxiety regarding our current situation,” they say.

There is a book for each age group starting at five and up to 10-years-old and teaches age appropriate lessons about preventing spread of the virus. Learn more at the Coloring for COVID-19 website.

Beyer and Kragel were featured recently in a report on WRAL. Watch the broadcast.

In the News

The Best Hopes for a Coronavirus Drug, The Atlantic, 4-8-20

Learning Opportunity

A live conversation on the coronavirus with former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and commissioner of the New York City Health Department, Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, will be held on Monday, April 13 beginning at 11 a.m. Dr. Frieden, who is now president and CEO of the global public health initiative Resolve to Save Lives, will speak about the state of the pandemic and how both the country and the world can move beyond it. Learn more and register for this free live chat. You may submit questions beforehand at [email protected].