8.25.2020 RAC Bay County Community Work Group Leadership Meeting

Here is the link to the 8.25.2020 RAC Bay County Community Situation Reportpresented at the meeting. This wilm also be available on the dashboard in the upper right corner above the Facebook feed.

The numbers of cases have been going down. The positivity rate varies greatly from day to day, but was 17% on August 25th, which is well above the state positivity rate. 

Adam Johnson (FDOH) presented the Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response. Here is the news release about the assessment, with a summary of results.  

Followed CDC guidelines in the CASPER Tool Kit regarding how to conduct the assessment. Here is the information about the CDC protocol used to assure randomization and proper weighting from the CDC's CASPER Tool Kit. FDOH Bay County studied Monroe County's CASPER used after Hurricane Irma. The CASPER is a good surveillance tool to use to evaluate the impact on the health of the community. 

All of Bay County and a couple of clusters of Gulf County were surveyed approximately 1 year after Hurricane Michael. Of the 30 neighborhoods surveyed, 24 were from Bay County and the other 6 were from Gulf County. FDOH Bay County partnered with Life Management in Bay County and other local organizations, and Health Dept Staff from Bay County and other counties collaborated on the effort. The survey tool used has questions about recovery, health, mental health specifically and preparedness as well as demographic information and specific symptoms.

FDOH has used the results to determine what additional services are needed for the community, to strengthen partnerships with organizations in the community that are supporting key issues identified by the CASPER.

Findings regarding Health Care and Access to Health Care

• Many people did not have access to health care after Hurricane Michael. Many providers moved to a different counties and opened new practices. Their former patients could not reasonably commute to the new offices.
• Access to medication was an issue, and many people did not know that they were allowed to get a 30 day supply of medication if a disaster is declared.
• Dental care is available, and determining if those services are well utilized ia an objective.
• WIC department for women and children provide free or reduced rate health services, and determining if those are appropriately utilized is also a concern.

Eric Kunzman (EMS) was interested to know if those who did not evacuate or did not have preparedness kits can be identified from the survey for follow up from Emergency Services regarding placing shelters where they are most needed.

He said that the Panama City Beach test site is being closed due to Panama City Beach events/oither needs for the location. A test site will be opened in Callaway. EMS would like to target sites where people from the most vulnerable populations can access them. 

Janice suggested that we can survey to determine the best locations.

There was a discussion: The numbers of people coming for testing has dropped. Are people just burned out? Are the numbers just going down and people are not going any more? What are obstacles: Locations? Hours? Fear? Are people electing not to get tested for other reasons? Are asymptomatic people not getting tested? The number of obituaries is much higher than normal.

Q & A to Eric Kunzman:

Q. People who are in the geographies that hyave been threatened by hurricanes have not known how to evaluate the best course of action if they have a family member theat is isolating due to COVID. How do they evaluate all the risks from staying at home to evacuating to a family member's home if that is possible to evacuating to a shelter?

A.

• It is a personal choice to evacuate to a home of someone in your family that will take you rather than take them to a shelter. It will be easier to isolate them in a small family environment, and the likelihood of spreading the disease is lower.
• FDOH and EMS Bay County are working together on screening everyone who arrives at a public shelter, and making sure that there are isolation areas at special needs shelters. There is a big challenge about the space available in shelters, and they should be used as a last resort. 

Q. How do you know if everyone arriving is COVID + or -

A. It has to be by honest people divulging that they were isolating when the storm required them to evacuate to a shelter.  There will be temperature screenings, sanitizer, and each person must bring at least 2 masks.

Outreach Report

We are working with PanCare at the Glenwood Community Center Sept 2 10:30am - 12:30pm. There will be sign ups and walk ups with outreach to the elderly community, and we would like to provide information to them. This is an opportunity to survey and to give hurricane information and hand sanitizers. It might be helpful to have someone from the Census there.

Eula says:

• Work Group Leads need to get their Stakeholder and Committee Lists in with contact information.
• Work Group leads should post every week or every 2 weeks.