Pasco County meeting record

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1Sep 21, 2020
Board of County CommissionersR2Regular businessNo disposition in the minutes
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39m
Jack Mariano
move my paperwork over here for a second. So next we're moving on to R two um presentation, COVID nineteen pandemic update from Department of Health. Um Mr. Napier here today. How are you, sir?
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Good morning commissioners. Uh thank you for having me here today and uh Uh
We've covered a couple of the topics in the slideshow.
All right, move on to the next slide, please. Um, for the record, you gotta you'll see your name too. Um Mike Napier, Florida Department of Health, Pasco County, thirty four hundred floor Mart Terrace, Newport Ritchie. Um Several of the things that we're going to talk about but I think are important to remind us is the COVID response. The governor did extend the uh uh executive order till November fourth. And uh the Surgeon General uh continues with his um A public health advisory. Uh and the last thing is is that Pasco
County continues with their local state of emergency. And the next slide. This is a slide that uh I send out to you all on Friday. Um I wish I had better news as far as uh what our cases have been over the last several weeks. Um this slide, and I'll uh we've got some uh markers on here from everything from Memorial Day to phase two to when the county put the uh surgeon, the the Surgeon General put the mask order out and then uh Pasco County,
4th of July. And uh the blue lines are the number of cases each. Yeah. The big one, the blue line that goes all the way up to almost 9,000 is the cumulative number of cases. And then uh the red line is the seven day rolling average uh of um New cases. And uh where our concern is is at the very end of that graph where we're starting to see some uh uh increases in numbers and I'll get a little more specific on that as well. The next slide.
This is the daily number of cases we get. Um if you look that red bar represents the seven days, the last seven days. We've seen an increasing number of cases for each of those days. The median day average is fluctuated significantly where most of our cases are not necessarily are being identified in long term care facilities, but in the general population. The next slide.
Um I know that a lot of questions come up about testing and how many tests are we doing in comparison to our positivity rate. Our testing is uh stayed fairly level in in our um I mean they fluctuate day to day. Uh the health department continues to support a drive-thru um testing, eight until eleven o'clock in the morning at the old Sears building for drive-thru. We just Established this week, this past week, uh testing for those that are at the school system that are
identified that are uh symptomatic. We have a fast track for those that uh are in the school system, faculty and students. Uh the concern here really is is that uh we were doing pretty well back in the early part of uh September, averaging uh about three percent uh as a rolling average on our positivity. This last week, uh it's the first time in almost a month that we got almost a six percent positivity rate and we had 1,300 cases. Sometimes when you get a low number of uh test results, you can get a high
spike, but we had uh a relatively high number of tests done that day as well. And next slide. Uh this is the running average. This kind of smooths out the daily bumps uh and gives you a sense of uh Um and where I marked on this where the arrows are. Um we have a low mark of we were averaging twenty-nine cases a day. to where we are today where we're averaging almost fifty a day. And that's over a two week period. And so
this rolling seven day average is something that we monitor from a standpoint of which trend are we heading. And if you pay close attention at the very end, you can see that the last two weeks, last week specifically, we were rising in the number of cases that we're having. And that's a seven-day average. And next slide. This is the number of deaths. Yeah, I think I've talked to you all at one point or another about the deaths and how they're reported. Many times you'll see on the death count that we'll have uh six or eight in a particular day. That's the
day that they're reported to us. They're not necessarily the day of uh uh the death. And so we go back and put this graph together to give you a sense of When we were heat of the uh uh epidemic, we were having a significant number of deaths and uh now we're down to one or two a day. One or two are still too many, but uh uh we are uh trending out and that's kind of leveling off.
Yeah.
I know that schools were a big question for us on what the impact of school openings were going to be. We have a total of 79, this was as of Friday. We had a total of 79 students and 26 staff that have tested positive for 105 total cases. I think the thing that many people worry about is the next section, which was that we have almost 1,400 students exposed at school, which means that they were going to be sent home for that exposure time and making sure that they're staying home for
those 10 or 14 days, depending on their exposure. And we've had 128 staff that were exposed at school.
Mike Wells
Chairman, if I could stop your mic real quick. Um Remind me again. How they consider exposed. So kids in a class with thirty I don't know how many kids are in classes now. Um twenty kids, they're all considered exposed 'cause the one kid's positive or
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Yeah, it depends. Uh one of the things that we started when we when school started, we s uh we set up a command center. With my epidemiologist, my nursing director, and the school administration, so that we could get into the nuts and bolts of okay, if that classroom is in an elementary classroom and there's 20 kids, we go back and talk about what their exposure plan is. And in that case, they may be all 20 of them have to be excluded excluded. If they're in a classroom where they're in high school and they're not going from class to class, They have to go on a case-by-case basis. If
the school's following their protocols and they are, then it's a matter of, I can't say every kid that is exposed, depending on the exposure. Because remember, it's it's a matter of 15 minutes or more of close exposure time, and then making sure that um uh they're six feet apart if they're not, and we have to go through that scenario each of the classrooms and where they've been, if it's a Monday versus a a Friday because they've had all week of that exposure. So there's a lot of criteria that goes into the determination of whether they're ha the student has to be excluded or not. I
I know that's not a straight answer, but it's a one that we have to take in and why we put that command center together to be able to talk to the school administration and talk to uh parents and and also uh the epidemiologist. Okay. Um So one thing that uh that we did early on with the uh exposures, uh this wasn't about exposures, the report I used to give to you all about how many had been re removed from from quarantine, uh that was those that were positive and they've gone through those fourteen days
of uh uh exclusion and they could come back. In this case, I wanted to be able to say that out of the nearly 1400 students exposed to school, we have eight hundred and fifty seven staff and students that are currently quarantined, but also we have five hundred and forty two people have been released. So it's one of those rolling cycles of when people have been asked to stay home because they've potentially exposed and then making sure that uh they're able to return to school as soon as possible. The next uh
slide. This is something that we collected from CDC and the Harvard Global Public Health Institute. I know there's been a lot of question, and I've been following this very closely in neighboring counties. To come up with okay, at what point do we decide that uh we can uh reduce the uh m the mandates and uh social distancing? From a public health standpoint, I have to tell you when we have a vaccine or when we have medication to treat COVID. From a practical standpoint, we need to be able to get some numbers down to a point where
we're at right now 49, if you look to the uh arrow to the right, we're at 49 averaging a day. This was a matter of and and I want to make sure I point this out. If you look at the first red arrow, you see 175 per 100,000. That is um that rate, that's the 25 per day times seven days. We have uh five and a half uh five hundred and fifty thousand populations, so our number would be 138.5 per day
cases if we were in the high. When you come down to where we are now, we're at uh I guess they call it low moderate, just below the low moderate of um Uh what we want to be fifty-five point five would be the number of cases would be in that case. We're in f at 49 a day, so we're a little below that.
Before this past week, we were teetering right on the very low cases. So that kind of gives you a sense. And I do want to bring up at this point, I'm on regular conference calls with my surrounding health officers and county managers and county commissions are having the same questions about, well, what point do we pull that trigger that we need to release that mask? And uh we have and I believe that the county managers have been talking, I know we've been talking. to go to uh um uh USF or some other location to be able to have uh institute to
be able to do some studies to be able to say from a regional standpoint, because we're all getting the r same question, right? It doesn't have to mean Penellas or Pasco or Hernando or Hillsborough. We're all trying to come up with that answer. So we're we're actually looking to the academics to be able to come up with something from a regional standpoint. We know we have a community that moves from Pasco to Pinellas and Penellas to Pasco, Hernando, Hillsborough, all those counties. So we want to make sure that if we're gonna lift or make some decisions, maybe we could do it from a regional standpoint rather than a case-by-case basis. So
the next slide.
And this is a little bit about the our numbers. Uh we've had as of uh this morning eight thousand eight hundred and thirty-four cases. And that's uh and the the number that should be a little bit alarming to you is that uh In this past week we've had a 61% increase in cases in the last seven days. So we're we're headed in the wrong direction at this point. I'd like to be able to tell you why Um I've got some in the next slide I'll talk a little bit about potentially what that might be. Commissioner Weightman.
Mike Wells
If you're gonna go over it, I just I'm asking is it because the school board's back in school? I'm assuming that's what it is, but if you're gonna go over it not.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Right. Yeah, I'm glad I put that up because it's not necessarily the school board. That's that's why I want to make sure I answer that question. Uh to date we've had 1.6 of our population is been infected and we've had 205 deaths, which is a.037 uh rate for our population. I know that early on there was concern about uh beds and people uh flooding our hospital systems and not able to uh manage those uh those that were needing the hospitalization, as you can see, our
hospitalizations and acute beds are right about where they normally are in in in normal sky uh normal days.
Okay, so some of the conclusions. We're trending upward on our uh number of daily cases, as I said from 30 to almost 50 a day. We're trending higher in our positivity rate. Uh we were about 3%. We're almost at 4% right now. That 1% does matter. The influences, um we know that schools are opening, but I can tell you that with those cases of uh the number of students and and staff that's over the three week period, so there's Not a l when we went back and looked, I get a report that identifies
by age group. zero to four per four years old, five to fif fourteen and then fifteen to twenty-four age group. And we're not seeing a spike in those numbers to lead us to believe that it's in uh in our school population. When I talked to my epidemiologist on Friday, the concern part is this. When we were having a lot of cases That I would get sick and I would go home, and then a couple days later, four of my family members that live with me got positive. And where numbers were getting real high because
there was a lot of spread within the family members. These cases that we're getting now, there's there's one in the family, and we're not getting all the family members continuing to be sick as well. So there is community spread here. It's not getting spread from within each of the family units.
Labor Day, we're seeing uh an increase. That could be an influencer in the bars opening. I think it's probably too early to tell because it is a two to fourteen day um incubation period from the time it spread. Um I want to remind everyone that flu season's beginning and you can get your flu shot just about anywhere. And I encourage you to do that and encourage others. As I mentioned before, we are looking at a regional approach for face coverings so that we have some guidance from a regional standpoint. And the
last last um Slide. Just remind y'all the pandemic is not over and that I understand face coverings are inconvenient and uncomfortable. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association continue to support the use of face coverings to reduce the exposure of COVID-19. Just as recently as last week. The CDC Director Robert Redfield said, quote, the best defense we can currently have against this virus are the important mitigation efforts
of wearing a mask, washing your hands, social distancing, and being careful around crowds. So that's the end of my presentations. If you're happy to take questions.
Ron Oakley
Commissioner
Jack Mariano
Oakley.
Ron Oakley
Yep. Mike, good report. Um I know comments I've gotten on emails and all to my emails for the county and all with our citizens. I'd say about eighty or eighty five percent of our citizens think it's too early to remove masks, which is good to hear 'cause I think uh they realize that it's not over and uh they still need to be taking precautions. a month from now, two months from now, some numbers look a lot different and we're down and and I
think our county staff and all done a great job and and doing the right thing here in Pasco County and our numbers I believe have shown that. Uh we've been in good shape the entire time. So I would hate to see us open it up too early and then They go out of sight when Well we can keep that from happening by by washing hands distance and and wearing a mask. So yeah, I appreciate
Unidentified speakerVoice A
your report. And you to your point, again, we're trying to come up with a regional approach where we have some numbers and benchmarks that we all could agree to. So that that would uh give you the okay, when we hit that point from a a number standpoint, then you'd be able to uh Uh say okay, we're in the clear or we hope we're in the clear, move forward. Okay.
Jack Mariano
Commissioner Mariano. Mr. Nigia, have you done the comparisons between Hernando County to Pasco County, what things look like?
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Um not in a in-depth. They are um about two points ahead of us in uh positivity rate. We're at right about three and they're teetering at five. Um They are a little different population where from uh the the academic standpoint, we're asking them to kind of look at uh you know, from a population density standpoint. from a school utilization standpoint, they are seeing the same kind of s uh increases that we are currently.
Jack Mariano
Okay. And there's no master mandate up there.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Corre and and the general population, the school population, they did require that. Right,
Jack Mariano
but the but the general population they haven't had it from day one we we we adopted it, they didn't adopt it. Correct. And how long ago was that?
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Well when we adopted uh the cases it was uh our mask here you're talking about?
Um
June third.
County Administrator
June twenty third.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
June twenty third, sorry. Okay.
County Administrator
Yeah, we've seen a reduction of about seventy-two percent in new cases on our seven day rolling average since from our peak. I will say that um to Commissioner Mariano's question On a per capita basis, Hernando has about the same number of cases we do. We're within two to three percent between us and Hernando County. Now they are a lot less dense, so they actually should have a lot less cases than we do on a when you look at a density perspective. Because we have a lot less cases than on a per capita basis than either P Penellas or Hillsborough do. Again, it's a density issue. Uh that said their
deaths per capita are sixty percent greater than Pasco County. So while their cases are about the same as ours, they've had about sixty percent more dust on a per capita basis than we have in Pasco County. They're they're at about twelve and we're going to be able to do that. I have the numbers from yesterday, we were at one ninety nine. So on a per capita basis, they've actually had sixty percent more deaths than we have in Pasco County. So that's just a high level what the numbers are right now between us and Hernando.
Jack Mariano
How do these numbers compare to way back when we the H one H one N one uh pand wasn't a pandemic then, but when that was going around. How do these how do the numbers compare? compare? I
Unidentified speakerVoice A
to tell the truth, sir, I haven't researched that to determine that. Really?
Jack Mariano
Some say that was a lot worse than this is. Mm-hmm. But you don't know that.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
I no. Well, I I think the virus is m m uh is uh more severe than H one N one. I think That's the virus was attacking children in H1N1 and that was the the older and the younger were the um Um focus on the H1N1, now it's predominantly the the elderly.
Jack Mariano
And look looking at preventions that have d been done and well I wanna get I don't want to get into being a doctor. When you look at the the the spikes that we had, spring break affected a lot of different things all around this country. Moved it around, numbers were spiking up. And that that led to a lot of the pandemic to to explode. Um What they did in New York as far as putting people in nursing homes together, not protecting them, certainly cost a lot of lives up there without protecting them as much as they possibly could have. Um But
from what you've seen, even with the fourth of July spike that there was To where we are now. to liberty spike Really, these spikes are getting smaller and smaller, aren't they? I mean the schools, everyone's worried about what the what's gonna happen to the schools. They've been in for three weeks now?
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Yeah.
Jack Mariano
And we're not seeing much though. It's only counting a week if you count in what could be happening.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
I mean, Where we're seeing in in uh where we are seeing spikes that are in Hillsborough County specifically, that age group of fifteen to twenty-four, which is the college students that any of them are on campus and you see that on the news every night where they're having parties and that's where they're that's we don't have a uh a campus here where there's that many uh students. Uh Saint Leo's been great to work with, they're very cautious with with what they're doing out there. So we're not
I
Jack Mariano
think everybody's paid attention that Everyone's protecting us everyone's washing their hands, the distancing people who are en masse and I think Tell me the tell me how effective is a cloth mask compared to a N ninety five mask?
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Well, they're designed for different things. Uh an M95 is to protect you. The mask is a matter of making sure that you're not expiring uh respiratory droplets. An N ninety-five is really to protect anything coming in on you and they're fitted differently. You have to be fit tested. They have uh if anybody that's been fit tested, you know you have to put the mask on, and then they uh have a smelling uh apparatus to see if you can smell through that mask. So that's really protecting yourself. Uh a facial mask, face covering is to prevent if I sneeze that I
don't spread droplets to you. So there's there the masks are very different.
Jack Mariano
So the N the N ninety five has worked very well to protect you. It's gonna let stuff out because it only filters one way.
really has got l even less protection than an N ninety five even going out, wouldn't you say?
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Well I'm not a mask expert expert, but I would say that if I sneezed and and s sent respiratory droplets towards you from here and I put this on, then I think it would make great sense that All those droplets didn't get to use, so
Jack Mariano
Sneez sneezing sneeze sneezing aside, no matter what mask you have on is going to hold that sneezing, that's good. I'm talking about regular breathing. When you breathe through an N ninety five, it's designed to release it out. A surgical mask is only designed in a surgical atmosphere, they say if it's if a doctor may sneeze or contaminate the wound he's working on. That's what that that's all protection. It's all loose going around. Correct. Um so it doesn't really Protect. uh stuff that's gonna go out other than sneezing and and what have you.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Well one other advantage of wearing a mask and and this is uh studies and you can find these studies as well with uh New England Journal of Medicine was The act of wearing a mask is a great way to remind yourself that you need to protect yourself. It's not the mask isn't the end-all-be-all, but it's a constant reminder when you're out there to remind yourself that maybe I do need to wash the hand cart and at the grocery store or wherever you. The mask isn't foolproof by no means. But if you put that with the three other things or the two other things of washing your hands and social distancing. Dan
made a great point. We reduced our rate by seventy-two percent by when we instituted the mask ordinance. That didn't happen just because it happened. It happened because we instituted those three things in our together to make sure that we're not spreading the disease. Any one thing isn't gonna work. Social distancing is a hundred percent because you don't get anybody close, but other than that, the other two pieces when you can't social distances do work.
Jack Mariano
Okay, so reminder is the biggest part of the mask.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Yeah. I wouldn't say it's the biggest one. It is a part where in the mask is a sign that yes, I re need to remind myself. How many of you all got out, go to the store and forgot it, and go back up to the car to put it on, right? We've all forgotten it. So so I think it's one of those things that's a reminder that I need to be careful.
Unidentified speakerVoice B
For questions?
Mike Wells
If I could. And Mike, I again, you've done a great job. I you know, I've got my own opinion, my personal opinion on things, but I wear a mask when I have to. And quite frankly, if It's gonna save somebody else if I do get it then you know, it it does you know. could possibly save lives and again you and your team have done a great job. I just My question is But I I like the idea of bringing a U S F but I mean at this point are you basically just saying we're gonna have to wait till the The cures out, and then that's when we're gonna go to no mask.
I know at the beginning we talked about the number being below four percent, I believe it's below that. You know, now we're kinda and again, I respect the heck out of you and your team and what you've done. You've done an unbelievable job. Everybody has. Um with it. I understand the regional
At this point at last meeting was, hey, we're gonna give the school a month or so, which I agree with. Let's see what the numbers do. I think the school board, no matter what, We were decid to decide I think they're gonna keep the mask and it's probably not a bad idea if The numbers show that it's needed. So when are we talking about USF? When can we get something? I just what I've seen in places, and this is what bothers me, you've got the national news is scaring everybody. Oh my God, you're gonna die. And people have died. We've
had two hundred it sounds like and and I know that I know one of those and uh that the family members got the got it and the father passed away and it's terrible. I don't want that to happen. You know, my son's at college, I worry about him coming home and and me getting it and you know, so I I do. Um, but but my thing is, you know, When when can we get there? I've seen businesses getting in arguments with folks. It's just tough because we're expecting these businesses to Witch mask, you can watch Spirit Airlines, the one guy's wearing a buff, which is normally what
I wear, but they're saying that's not good enough. You know, these are things I see. I've been in Wa Wa uh you know, people yelling, I've been at Walmart, I've been in Target, folks yelling you have to wear a mask, you got the wrong mask. I You know, again, I'm all about us highly recommending it. Um, but again, I I support it until you tell us otherwise. Um because You're it. You're the expert we look look to and I respect you and your team and and what you come up with. But I'm just Are you basically just telling us we're gonna have to wait till the The cure's coming out and that's when we're gonna go back
to no masks or
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Well a couple things on that. First I would say that those that are most vulnerable probably they will need to stay social distance, wear a mask for those that are suspect cases that have other conditions. Um the second thing is is that um where we if if the numbers would have continued to head in the direction it was two weeks ago. then I you know I think there would be a different recommendation. But right now when we said wait for school, wait for Labor Day, wait and we're seeing the trend that's going in the wrong direction, that
wouldn't be the time to take the foot off the gas and say we need to do that. In the meantime, and it's going to take another incubation period at least 14 days to determine what these cases will spin into the next cases, that that gives us uh some time frame to be able to come back and make recommendations as a region about, all right, if your case level is at this level, then we believe that that could be a consideration. I don't ever foresee people not wearing face masks. We we were just last night we talked about it and the fact that we used to think that when we see people in Japan wearing face masks or
in places where they had the H1N one, that seems so strange. And now you walk in the street today and you see everybody wearing a mask. So it's just how we've changed to understand that at some point, yes, the mask will be released. And I think that if we get the academic people to help us with that, and y and you hear the news and the studies everywhere, everybody's all over the board, right? So I'm leaning towards C D C the American American American Pediatric Association and AMA to give us some guidance. And and there are there's there's people that don't want to wear masks and and I I I I
can't change their opinions. I can just say this is what's best for our public right now.
Mike Wells
And the misconception is and again I get the senior population is Is is is the population that it's critical, but you know, with them wear a mask doesn't prevent them from getting it. You know, but I again I support what you say. So you're basically telling us you'll let us know in a couple weeks, go over the numbers. Yeah,
Unidentified speakerVoice A
we're working with Dan to come up.
Mike Wells
And you guys, again, Dan, everybody's done an unbelievable job. I think we've overcommunicated, which is not a bad thing. I've just seen these poor businesses, and I I don't want to say poor business, but having to regulate it themselves and they're losing customers. They may be gaining customers too, but I just It's it's been tough, but again I support what you say. I I totally respect what you say and and uh I'll just leave it at that. Dan?
County Administrator
Yeah, Commissioner, I think the plan right now is to come back on the twentieth of October with another update, just kind of much like today. and kinda give you an idea of where we are, what we're hearing out there, what it looks like, what the curve's doing. Uh and you don't know. We don't we don't know what's gonna happen in another tr thirty days. And and maybe that's an opportunity we can make some changes, but I think the plan is, you know, bars just opened last week. We expect to see something from that. Um, you know, I think what we're seeing today is really a Labor Day.
you know, what continues on. But I think right now the plan is to come back on the twentieth of October regularly schedule board meeting and have the discussion again to walk you through where we are with the data. And then kinda kinda see where we are in the right-of-way. Maybe we have an answer by then, maybe we don't, but at least we have an idea a little further down the track. I you know, I think what we're seeing is significant improvements on the treatment side right now. And that that's I think probably our best case scenario right now is see the treatments on the that improved where it really reduces the impact once you do get it.
Jack Mariano
So
During our T D C meeting I think it was a week ago. A week ago? It's all running together, right? I think it was a week ago. Last Wednesday. We had um Unsolicited, some um of our hoteliers had brought up some information 'cause we're talking about numbers and things, and and I asked you maybe if you could You can go over some of that, maybe what was stated and and what they said. Um How that went down. 'Cause we t when we want to talk about businesses, they They brought some information to us that, you know, may be surprising to
some.
County Administrator
Right. And uh it Part of what they said was one of the things that we're going to the recent upturn in occupancy rate in hotels in Pasco County was from their customers, directly related to the fact that we had a mask order in place. because the customers want to go someplace that is paying attention and and maintain safety. And so customers again what the hotel years told us last week was that the customers were coming here Because other places they would have gone to don't have the order or ordinance Depending
on the county, in place. And so they would prefer to come pl some place that is safe. So that's why you saw the occupancy rates up last week. The other thing is Adam did a little research and there was uh two or three different surveys out there to survey actual travelers and what they're doing and anywhere from sixty to ninety percent of the travelers said They are m it's very important or imp important or very important that the place they go has some kind of ordinance or order in place to protect the public. And so they are look the
travelers are looking at that. And so one of the things we've seen on the occupancy rate is it tick up. And frankly we're actually I think last week matched last year finally in occupancy rates. A lot of that the hotel years are telling us is because the travelers are saying it's important to them that we have this in place, and that's why they're choosing Pasco.
Jack Mariano
So Yeah, I and I when I sat there I thought it was interesting because I came from tour hour tour hotel years and one of 'em was a very large one. that we all are aware of in in this area, pr if not the largest, um property in the in in the county. I'm I got I'll I'll send these out just so you guys know too. I did receive um Letters from um Dr. Rose Quist from um Advent Health, the medical director. um chief medical officer for advent health and then um Doctor
Annan, he's um the Chief Medical Officer for Bay Care. Um And they just basically sent letters to us applauding the county's efforts. Um
almost begging us not to go backwards now to continue with what we're doing now. Um I'll forward it to everybody that way you guys can have a copy of the of the emails and letters from both of 'em. But um asking us to stay on course for now. That's what they're saying.
Jack Mariano
Mr. Chairman Mariano. Just a c a couple of things. And and Mike, um I'm not going to apologize. But uh I appreciate your take trying to take a look as much as what I was sending you over over time. I've I've sent him probably Fifty different things from web stuff to just go look at, look at. I know you didn't get a chance to look at it all of it, but I'd say that the one of the things that bothers me the most about about how we're treating this is for sixty-five years you could say that the drug hydroxychloroquine was safe. And
now they're not letting you get it. I even went to our own clinic to try to get it. Last month. They wouldn't even let me get it from them. I talked to other doctors who being worried about being banned or reprimanded from the pharmaceutical industry about being able to put that out. How just tell me professionally, how can you have a drug that's safe for 65 years treating malaria all over this world, and all of a sudden in January, miraculously, they take it and they put it on the non-label list? How d how does that how does it make you feel? Especially when you just said we think we're treating it better, and I
think we are.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
First I'm not a doctor, so I my I'm not gonna speak from a medical standpoint. Yeah, they're getting me a drink of water.
But but I think s My layperson opinion is um some of the politics have gotten involved in this and and really thank you.
Jack Mariano
That was a quick service.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, quick. But But the truth is, you know, everything from when vaccine comes out, whether people are willing to get the vaccine or not, to The medication you're talking about, um we try to stick to okay, because we we're we've had our first meeting with uh um county manager about um distributing vaccine when it comes and starting that planning process. And I think that uh the medication side of it um
I I wish I had a better answer for you, Jack, but I think that some of this just gets in the swirl of of social media and and and politics. Unfortunately it just it it falls on party lines sometimes and uh No good answer to it.
Jack Mariano
Okay. Um another question. As far as when p when someone's walking outside, 'cause uh y you never want to have anybody hurting themselves. And part of part of this whole thing I worry about be people using a mask over twenty-five times, I'm one of them. Um And you kinda wonder, all right, what what's the real protection? Um If there are harms that can fr from this and from what I'm hearing there are some different harms. Just for an open thing for people to understand. If you're walking outside alone, do you need a mask on?
Unidentified speakerVoice A
No.
Jack Mariano
Okay. If you're in your car driving your car, do you need a mask on?
Unidentified speakerVoice A
No.
Jack Mariano
Okay. Okay. I mean just that that's the type of thing you start.
Um
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jack Mariano
Okay. I mean, I want to say I think everybody is really focused on this. I mean, whether you see the mask or not. I know my dad They're they're up north right now. They're on the way coming back down. But Him and his girlfriend, they only they don't go to dinner. They used to go to dinner all the time. They don't go to dinner now. It's all always at home. My mother We missed Going out on on b her birthday, my birthday, Father's Day, Mother's Day, and I my sister took her out to get her hair done the other day, and I says, okay, now we can go to lunch.
Kathryn Starkey
So
Jack Mariano
we went to lunch. And I'm I'm look I'm looking forward to that. I mean just so many of the seniors just don't get to see people and now in the right situation they can then c can go do it. Um Hand sanitizer. Are you a big fan?
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Yes.
Jack Mariano
Okay. So as much as we can get that product out the better off it'll be.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
And use it often. I just use it before I got up here, but uh it's and I carry it around. I know it looks a little dorky to carry it around, but we've got ones with carabiners, you can put it on your wallet, your purse or something to just be able to have it handy there Because our legal attorney here has one too. Uh it's just one of those things that and we've got some if people need it. We're trying to make it re if it's handy and readily readily available, people will use it. Yeah, everybody pulling it out now. He's got the fancy s nice smelling stuff over here, but uh
Jack Mariano
Dan, I hope I hope later on we can have a conversation about um the point distillery having all their hand sanitizer. If we got numb any numbers back from Mandy Foster from that yet?
County Administrator
I haven't heard anything. They need just to work out between Andy and and them. I mean we We're buying from a lot of different uh distributors or manufacturers and so we're making sure we're trying to make sure we have a a sustainable supply of P PE across the board in our in our storage facilities.
Jack Mariano
So I may bring it back this afternoon, but I will tell you the point distillery when we had all this going on, we try to get like different breweries to go make hand sanitizer, et cetera. They went and I think they had they said like twenty thousand cases of this stuff sitting their warehouse, which They can't move at this point in time. So I have Andy Fawcett taking a look at it. I C C Denn on it. He's gonna go try to take a look and if it works into the thing, it may be something that we can talk about how we're gonna get it out there for more and more folks. Um So with that discussion.
At least fifty percent, maybe sixty percent percent of the people are gonna wear masks no matter what we do at this point in time, all the way through. I don't think we should be pushing the other forty percent. To make them do it if they don't want to do it. And that's my thoughts.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
You know, you mentioned Andy Fossa and I would be remiss if I didn't give a big shout out to Andy and his team for you know, they covered the entire region, not just Pasco County, but uh tire and 140 some nurses being deployed to these long-term care facilities. Long-term care facilities where we had the biggest problems, where we had the deaths, it's where we had the spread. And it was i incredibly important that we had those teams in there testing people on a regular basis. Those that weren't getting it, we went in multiple times to make sure they got it and Andy and his team did an
incredible job for the region. So big shout out
Jack Mariano
to him. And if I could, Mr. Chairman Mariano Mike, you have done a phenomenal job. Danny, you have done a phenomenal job. The whole team, Andy Fosser and company. The awareness is out there, I think, has helped tremendously what could have have been a lot worse. I think I think we definitely nipped it better. So I I don't want to say Say that we haven't done the right stuff. I'm just saying that to this point my feelings uh have have modified even further to to go the other way. But I want to say I do appreciate you every step of the way. I only send you information in the in t in the sense of trying to help you give us the best information we can to make a
good decision for what's best for our people. So I do appreciate you and thank you. Dan everyone on the team, all the way through from Andy all the way through.
Jack Mariano
Yeah, we and we yeah, we all appreciate everything. And and just for the for the public and all of our first responders, and then I say when I say first responders, I mean our our nurses and our physicians and as well as our some of the front lines and our firefire paramedics and everybody that's dealing with this on a hands-on basis, on a daily basis. I mean you mentioned the command center. My wife is sitting in that command center right now as a registered nurse, and that's you know, and was there very, very early this morning and even took uh Uh shoot last weekend, not this past the weekend before that. She was on call all weekend taking all those
telephone calls from possible you know, people that unfortunately were infected and or in dealing with the staff and administrators and
Unidentified speakerVoice A
So we uh school board's been a great partner in this and and I want to also say because I've got asked this several times about we have about forty-five a part time employee. Well they're part time in other words they're forty hours a week but but uh uh until December to help us with these cases. So we've got it takes a little bit of training, but we've got about twenty five uh epidemiologists that are working these cases and contact tracers, phone call, data entry operators that are all brought in from the community to uh help us with the load so that I
can get my staff back to the normal day of of public health. So
Jack Mariano
yeah, the people front lines treating treating the patients. I know one person that, you know, is a physician that ended up in the ICU. Yeah. And for a long time.
these patients. So thank you to all obviously everybody out there. We appreciate everything you're doing. Thank you. Thank you for the update. We appreciate it.

CA-20-5017

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