Officials talk coronavirus: Local leaders urge calm; Organizations plan for potential outbreak

GALENA–As fears of novel coronavirus spread throughout the nation and the world, local leaders have begun to take necessary measures to plan for the spread of the disease in this area.

Chuck Pedersen, Jo Daviess County Emergency Management director; Dr. Ralph Losey, chief medical officer, Midwest Medical Center; Deb Hoppman, director of nursing, Midwest Medical Center; Sandra Schleicher, Jo Daviess County public health administrator; and Tracy Bauer, CEO of Midwest Medical Center, spoke, at Crossroads Community Church in Galena on Thursday, March 5, to about 40 individuals who represented emergency responders, county departments, churches and villages throughout the county to address the virus, roles and responsibilities and needs.

“We have been fortunate so far,” said Pedersen. “Like with any virus, it can jump and climb and get to you as quick as possible.”

Pedersen said he wants to make sure everyone is all on board in case the virus spreads and impacts the county.

Background

Coronavirus is a family of viruses that cause the common cold as well as more severe diseases. The strain impacting the outbreak is COVID-19, which had not been previously found in humans.

This strain began in Wuhan, China, which is now considered the epicenter of the outbreak. The first reported cases emerged from Wuhan on Dec. 31. It is estimated that the global mortality rate for COVID-19 is 3.4 percent.

“We really don’t know what this virus is going to do,” said Losey. “What we do know is that it is highly contagious. The good news is that 96 percent of the people that are exposed survive. The bad news is that about 3.5 percent of the people that have the virus die. The risk increases with age and about age 50, the rate is over 3 percent. Age 80 and over, the death rate is 15 percent.”

Losey said that when viruses get into a population where there is no immunization, which is the case with COVID-19, as they spread quickly, but research into a vaccine is ongoing.

“The only thing that will make them overcome this is their own body,” said Losey.

Losey said that COVID-19 is not as lethal as many viruses, but it is very contagious.

“It is very likely that it will be in our community,” said Losey. “Since we have an older population, we are at a significant risk. We need to consider this as a significant problem.”

Chicago has reported the lone cases in Illinois at this time and Losey discussed the risk that faces the region due to the number of visitors from Chicago.

“Of the 96 percent of people that survive, younger people tend to have very mild symptoms,” said Losey. “They need to stay in their house and stay away from other family members, wear a mask. They will be over with it in about 10 days and never be affected with it again.”

Losey said that those who are required to work with the public such as police, EMS and medical personnel need to be vigilant to protecting themselves from the virus.

“This is an opportunity to get the community together and willing to help and know how to protect themselves, protect their neighbor,” said Losey.

Losey said that he wants dispatch at the sheriff’s office to check for symptoms before dispatching EMS as he said those with mild symptoms should stay home and call their physician rather than risking the spread of the disease to others.

“Transferring a person who can walk out to the ambulance and get themselves on the cart because they have a cough is going to be irresponsible,” said Losey. “These are the kinds of things we are going to need to educate the community on.”

Losey said that information is changing by the hour during the early stages of the spread of the disease to the United States.

The epidemiology of the disease will not be known for a few months, in which case they may find out that the death rate is significantly lower than what is being reported or if it could be at the scale of the Spanish Flu in 1918.

Losey said that his fear is that the disease could be similar to that outbreak, but it is too early to tell. He said at that time Galena limited the people coming in and out of the city to limit exposure.

Roles and responsibilities

Schleicher said that the health department will be providing information to the public on prevention in the coming weeks.

Schleicher said that she is working with Illinois Department of Public Health as well as the Centers for Disease Control.

“Social distancing is starting to be discussed,” said Schleicher. “Including the possibility of cancelling large events and not gathering in big groups.”

Another role of the health department is providing isolation quarantine.

“The local health department works with the state health department and if there are any people who are sick, the local health department has the responsibility to quarantine those people,” said Schleicher.

Schleicher said that she will do her best to educate the public and to get the information out to those in the county.

Tracy Bauer, CEO of Midwest Medical Center, said that Midwest Medical Center has been preparing for an emergency such as this for years through their biannual table-top exercise.

“Many times we think why do we have to go through this, but this is a perfect example of why we go through it,” said Bauer. “I know we are ready at Midwest Medical Center to handle this. We will continue to take care of our community.”

Pedersen discussed the roles and responsibilities.

Pedersen said the first thing someone should do if they notice symptoms is to call a doctor. He also reiterated Losey’s statement in that dispatch needs to ask about symptoms of patients so that the message can be passed to EMS, so that responders can take proper precautions to protect themselves.

“From start to finish, we are getting all these agencies involved in case someone has this virus,” said Pedersen.

Pedersen said that everyone who responds needs to be careful of what they are running into or helping with when they respond to an incident.

Pedersen plans on having a meeting in the near future with the public in order to provide more information on the virus

“The whole community has to be involved,” said Pedersen. “For local government, we need to keep our community safe and think through plans of what we need to do.”

As of March 5, there were 99 cases in the United States and five in Illinois. There were 10 deaths as a result of COVID-19 in the United States at that time.