vaccine Ridge Road IT security remote work

1:34:07Yeah, sir, I have a few things this morning. Although I think y'all covered several of them already. Fort Ritchie meeting tonight, uh the list of lands over two items. Uh No, the Senator was getting a chance of thanking before he bolted, but Mike Napier identified the fact that we have people in lines for vaccines and testing So why don't we get them some information? So he reached out. Kathy's team put together some, you know, one page pamphlets to hand out and the senators team actually

1:34:37printed them for us so that the health department can hand out information of what's going on in the county to the people that are in line for vaccines. So that was a team effort there and you know he bolted before I got a chance to thank him publicly, but uh their team helped us out with that. Really appreciate that. I just uh

1:34:56Yeah an interesting note. Tomorrow will be one year since we had the first positive COVID case in Pasco County. The twelfth will be the day y'all. declared the local state of emergency. So we'll be in one year in the pandemic since those two dates later this week. Uh Mike sent me some of his vaccine data this morning. We are up to let me pull it back up.

1:35:24So he is there are at least fifty-one percent of our s plus sixty-five residents have had at least one dose of the vaccine. Uh so that's s massive project process in the in the age group that is most Both vulnerable to the disease countywide. We're at eighteen percent, probably approaching twenty percent. We'll have had at least one dose later this week, um which again is is massive progress. Still a long way to go. And as uh

1:35:55commissioner mentioned, the governor signed executive order last night, expanding as of next. next week the categories to lower the age to plus sixty. Uh and so that that will continue to roll out and change as we do that. Um and so that's Real positive again. When you look at our numbers, we're still behind the state average for counties. But again, that's because this region originally, as we discussed, you know, two months ago, was didn't get the vaccine as we should

1:36:25have per population, and we've never caught up. From a regional perspective. Us, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Polk, Manatee are still behind, basically the same percentage behind that we were. the very first when we weren't getting what we should based on our population base. So We're in good shape. As everybody said, you know, we're getting it pushed out. We're making sure every drop gets into an arm. Uh it's just a matter we've still never made that gap up that we got shorted as a region, not just a county, but as a region B you know, in

1:36:55late December and early January. Um so that's that's positive. Um you know, and that's resulting in significantly less hospitalizations where down below five percent of the hospital beds are held by those that have COVID. And so that's a very, very positive number. Uh and the same thing on ICU. It's right about five percent of the ICU beds are those that are positive for COVID. So very, very good. Uh in trending the right way. We're still Our fourteen day average of new cases is still right around a hundred. We we

1:37:25need that to continue to drop. And we're our percent positive we're right around five six percent. I think it's kind of the running average over the last seven days. Though that needs to get below five percent and we really need the numbers on the cases to drop. And hopefully the next couple of weeks of spring break we don't see, you know, another a peak coming after that. But that's we're in a good spot. We're trending well. The C D C sam came out with some guidance yesterday with respect to those that are vaccinated, but keep in mind it's not When you get your first shot. or

1:37:56your second shot, it's two weeks really after that second shot that you're considered fully uh vaccinated. So we are watching that and Mike and I have talked pretty regularly about you know, what's the process in this in this going forwards? I I will say W Pasco's open for business and has been open for business since the day the governor Open the state. back up. We just ask that and and require through the order that people wear their masks when they can't socially distance and they're inside in public spaces. That's

1:38:26not too much right now until we get more people vaccinated, especially that older group that we're targeting. So

1:38:32Mr. Bowes, that twenty one percent you're talking about vaccinated, does that include Those people that came in from another county into Pasco too, or do they separate those out?

1:38:42So they separate those out in their database and so he can track the number of a virus vaccinated or those residents of Pasco County that have gotten a vaccine from anywhere. That's the number he's looking at. All right. The majority of those have gotten them obviously inside Pasco County, but we've had plenty of people that have gone to other counties get vaccinated to uh and vice versa, right? 'Cause uh you know, if you can get in a public s you know, in Lakeland and you get a slot, you know, drive to Lakeland, go get go get the vaccine. So um the

1:39:13the one caveat to that is We don't have the numbers from the the vaccinations given about by the VA. They're working to get those numbers, but so those numbers are all without the numbers of vaccinations given out by the VA and the VA has also been vaccinated eligible vets that are plus sixty-five um at the various V VA facilities. So that number is not including because that's not part of the state tracking system. They should have those numbers here in the next seven to ten days incorporated

1:39:43into their numbers.

1:39:47I think it's another five or ten percent. Yeah. Yeah.

1:39:49Wait. Right. I can go.

1:39:53All right. Thank you. So um maybe I when I was reading this, it confused me because she would say it's gonna be f 60 and older. They're lowering it on March fifteenth. And then they said frontline health workers and sworn law enforcement. I thought first responders were already eligible regardless of their age, but then it says K through twelve employees and firefighters age fifty or older.

1:40:19The yeah, the technical language and and so give you the answer. The technical language is you are correct. Um it's firefighters fifty and older, however. All of our fire fighters are required to be paramedics and we consider them frontline health care workers. And so those that have wanted the vaccine, we've tried to get the vaccine. So we consider our Hermetics. Frontline healthcare workers that have direct patient contact. Yeah. And so we have done that since his very first executive order came out. That is how we've

1:40:49tried to qualify and quantify our our firefighters slash paramedics because they are frontline healthcare workers when they respond to a scene. And so we have been Those that have wanted the vaccine. Again, you still have a group out there that's not sure. We have tried to get them the vaccine. So we've done that. The d the number I saw the middle last week we were about five hundred and fifty county employees total that have gotten the vaccine. And so Total, total. That was last week. And again. So

1:41:21Uh right under three thousand, twenty nine hundred, twenty nine hundred eighty. Depends on the day. So we're we're continuing to work that. Um I have a whole packet of great news. I'm not gonna go through it all. We'll send this out to you today or tomorrow. I will point out that uh the project manager y'all know, uh Sam Bennick. uh was awarded a twenty twenty professional year by the Florida Bicycle Association for the work on trails. So, you know, I've Since y'all know his name because of the trail work he does and the the other

1:41:52small project he's been working on, um Ridge Road. Yeah, I want to make sure y'all are aware of that. But we will send there is a ton of great stuff in here you know across the enterprise. Another one is just uh real quick IT. We started training or continued and and we increased our Security training a few years ago from an IPT perspective. We went from a 20% click rate on phishing emails to the last data shows us below two percent

1:42:22from a county employee perspective. And that's you know one of the largest vulnerabilities to our security system. And so by training our team members, our employees on you know, how to recognize those things that are related to vulnerabilities on the network, we've made a tremendous impact to help protect our data. And that ultimately, you know, that is, you know, what we're trying to do is protect our data. And so we've gone from a 20 plus percent click rate. you know, two years ago to a one point eight percent click rate today. So while that's

1:42:52still, you know The industry average is about four and a half. The goal is zero, right? You won you wanna be a zero, but that's significant progress and that's a team effort. You know, every employee uh has the ability to recognize something and and IT's done a tremendous job really improving that system. Uh yeah, and I know you all know you know about two factor authentication if you're logging into the network, you know, there's a bunch of other things that we're doing. going to continue to protect our data because we can't protect it enough as we saw you

1:43:22know not too long ago with the water plant just south of us and the in the intrusion that it had. So continue to work on that. And Mr. Chair, I got a lot of other good news, but I think I'm I'm pretty much done for now. So Yes, ma'am.

1:43:51No top. It's it's It's open. It's o well, the building department's still taking permits in the first floor for now. But for meetings and stuff, the the meet the the building's open. But this this this one, because generally there's no need on a day-to-day basis for the public to be in this building, you know, it it's closed for now. Now we are continuing to evaluate those and my guess is over the next four to eight weeks, there will be some changes in that process.

1:44:20When uh are we are we

1:44:27So we have a remote work policy that's in place that we adopted middle last year. And that is really gonna be dependent on the operational necessity of the various work groups and departments. So some areas are actually be more efficient working remotely. Some areas are or coming back into the office and what we're probably gonna see is a lot of hybrids. Where you have people work from home so so many days a week and then come into the office other days a week, depending on the, again, the operational necessity in

1:44:58ensuring that we maintain the level of service. Um, but there is a significant advantage to certain skill sets and certain Professions working from home because of how efficient they can be. Or or working remotely. We call it remote work policy, not going to say a work from home policy.

1:45:15So um A couple months ago, we were in that meeting with some uh Very big conference.

1:45:24And uh it was mentioned there that when plans are submitted for copies, they sit on a table for a day or two, and then they move to another table for a day or two, then another table to a day or two. Are we still doing that?

1:45:37I don't think so.

1:45:41Thanks for coming out, thank you.

1:45:46And that was a yeah, that was a communication issue on that one that is we have worked to solve.

1:46:13We we have worked to improve the communication process, yes. Yeah.

1:46:17Mm-hmm.

1:46:17And we'll continue to work to continue to improve that, depend on the

1:46:21Mm-hmm.

1:46:23It's okay. I heard everything. Sorry.

1:46:26Um, something I heard this morning was uh on the news was a discussion of a vaccine passport. Help us coming. And that um but so, you know, I guess at some point, I don't know how you're gonna if this is the case in the in the workplace if you're some people have had the vaccine. And all these people chose not to get it.

1:46:52Okay. Is it business as usual for the people who decide not to get the vaccine or how would you do it? I don't hadn't really thought about all that.

1:47:00Yeah, I guess it You know, uh from an operational perspective, that's a little bit different than what a business may do for their operation. The the CARES the Supplemental Care's Act extended the requirement to have the quarantine leave through the end of March. That did not get incorporated, at least I don't believe it did, into the act that was passed the Senate over the weekend. And so the quarantine the the requirement to allow your employees to have quarantine leave expires at the end of March. What we are going to do from a policy perspective with

1:47:31every is until the vaccine is readily available and our employees have had adequate time to get that if they want to, they will still have quarantine leave available to them. at such point where we think there's been enough time for them to get it. and they can make a decision yes or no and it's adequately available. You know, you can walk you don't have to make an appointment and wait three weeks, but you can go into publics and get it or whatever, like you do the flu vaccine. the pointing leave will go away and if you happen to get sick or in contact, you'll just become PTO. But that

1:48:01probably won't happen. Probably in May. But again, that'll be a po that'll be an HR policy uh change that we will make internally to the operation. Um From a business perspective, you know, yeah, our goal is to get you know, everybody many people vaccinated so we breach herd immunity, whatever that number happens to be. And then just yeah, you know, make sure that you continue to be safe and maintain social distances where you can and those kinds of things. Because they help with other transmittable

1:48:32diseases too, right? That helps with the cold, that helps with flu, all those other things that require people to take time off too. So, you know, we'll be continuing to m manage that, but at some point Some of the restrictions will go away.

1:48:44Right. And um lastly, I just want to commend our our county for the policy of not wasting any vaccine. I know there was recently a nice little article in the paper. Um, but I've learned that some other counties just th are throwing away vaccines. And um I think we have a very good plan to make sure that not one vaccine gets wasted and um that only benefits the public here in Pasco County. So

1:49:12Yeah, in in and over time we've gotten better with making sure we understand how many people are gonna show up for events. Make sure we get the right or closer to the right amount out. You know, initially there was a wide disparity and we've over time understood better the behavior and so we're getting better at making sure we c we're closer to what we really need so we don't have as much excess on a day to day basis that we have to do the fire drill for.

1:49:39Yeah, I know my mom got uh one vaccine and she got it because there was leftover. Um And then she got covet. And so now her she's still not doing well. She's got pneumonia still months later. Um, or a month later. So she's not she was not allowed to get her second child. So she did not show up on the day that she was supposed to go for her second child. You know, so I'm sure there's a lot of that going on too. Chairman

1:50:07Mariano. I was just gonna mention I think it's very important that if they do schedule that they do attend or try to call in and cancel their appointment just to make sure that we don't have wasted vaccines.

1:50:20And and you know, so you gotta keep in mind it's not just the health department given it it's our IMT, uh the state's IMT team that's working through antifossa at the EOC that's doing it. Um public, Walgreens, Walmart, Wendixie, CVS. I think I'm missing one. I think one of the subsidiaries of one of those is also giving it in our region. So there's a what's that? Dams club. Right. There's there's a whole variety of ways you can now get the vaccine. Um

1:50:50We managed to watch it so that we don't end up the way early on where we had more that we needed to get rid of. Now they're getting much more refined with with expectations and what what they're seeing. Is

1:51:01there a standard wait list that CVS or Walgreens or one of these places can say, Oh well, let's go back to this standardized wait list. And use that wait list to see if

1:51:10someone can compare. They're all working off their own individual appointment systems. Part of that is not telling the privates how they run their business, but say, Okay, here's some vaccine, you what you get it out as best you can and here are the restrictions that the state has put on you and then let them do it. And that's that's basically how they've done it.

1:51:27Well what a lot of people don't know is when you open that one vial or that one shot it has six shots in it or it has ten shots in it. So people don't understand, well, if you have five people giving in shots that day, and they each use half of 'em and then you have sixty left over or whatnot. So That's why we do have so many left that's why we could have so many left over at the end of the day. Also, I was wondering, I know this has been brought up before the mask mandate.

1:51:57Um, didn't they say it was gonna be recommended that seventy percent of people are gonna be vaccinated with a low positivity rate before they are looking at low I

1:52:08I've seen

1:52:09removing the mask mandate.

1:52:11various numbers. I don't think anybody has a 'cause herd immunity is based on the R the the R naught factor, the how contagious the disease is. And so they're still doing research on some of that. And so you know, if you look at infectious diseases, historically we have some that You need ninety nine percent of the community uh I think uh measles is one where you almost need like everybody vaccinated. And then there's some where if sixty percent of the community is vaccinated, you have herd immunity. So it really just depends on how contagious the vaccine is. I don't think they have the

1:52:41final numbers. I've heard various numbers from 60 to 90 plus percent. So I don't know we have a good number on on that yet. I I think the key there is watching our positivity rate. watching our hospitalizations, which are good because, you know, cases lead to hospitalizations, but the more we hit the plus sixty five community, the less hospitalizations we're seeing because a younger group doesn't react like that. Now they can still have serious complications, but they typically don't end up in hospital beds or in ICU.

1:53:09Okay. 'Cause that also meant with advent health and other hospitals, but advent health we spoke more in depth on the vaccines and on COVID nineteen and they had made sure that people should be coming to the ER if they need to be going to the ER and they can also shut down other wings if there is an outbreak or something for COVID nineteen. So they can make beds readily accessible.

1:53:35Yeah, they have a pretty good search capacity.

1:53:38Mr. Chairman Mariano. Yes, sir. I just want to say uh that Dan, uh, Mr. Fosser and Mike Napier. Getting with all the neighborhoods and getting these vaccines out, they have done an absolute phenomenal job. Uh I've I've got as Ms. Commissioner Weight said, tons of phone calls with people that are happy getting it done. Um let me ask a question again as far as like talking about herd immunity. Uh has anyone given data to those that have had the disease and have built up antibodies as far as building up herd

1:54:08immunity? Are they using that data too or just straight vaccine?

1:54:13No, I think that's an important I don't know if there's a lot of things. any reasonable consensus out there on what that really means. Um and so Uh you know, I think Obviously we've seen different states take different approaches. Uh in in our state's been probably pretty aggressive with respect to open businesses, but then kind of allowing the the local areas to kind of make decisions on other restrictions. So I think That date there isn't really good data out there on

1:54:43that that that is has kind of consensus of the scientific community and I think I've I've s heard a lot of things from if you've had the disease you're immune forever to know you it's only like a three month immunity. So it's really kinda hard to tell at this point.

1:54:58Yeah.

1:54:59Again, I think there's a spot at which We will reach A pretty good

1:55:08Yeah. the state, if you will, uh probably here in the next six to eight weeks with respect to vaccine availability, the number of the vulnerable groups that have had the vaccine and that will result in really, really you know, positive impacts to the hospitalization rates and the in the capacity in our hospitals, which allow them to do other things. So I think we'll see some some some real positive results probably here in the next six Yeah. Um, so that's kinda what I'm thinking. Uh and again we're gonna

1:55:39it's gonna be around forever. Like Yeah.

1:55:43You know, other SARS are still out there. It's just a matter of things.

1:55:48Yeah, so it'll become like everything else. So

1:55:51All right, thank you.

1:55:53All right, that everything? That's all I have. Sorry for taking up so much.