Coronavirus Could Be Here to Stay
Fayette County Emergency Management Chief Craig Moreau told Commissioners last Thursday that the coronavirus may be here to stay.
“We’re moving to the point worldwide where clearly this is going to be endemic versus an ongoing pandemic,” Moreau said. “Endemics are something we have year after year, it continues to go on, kind of like the flu or another common coronavirus, the common cold. We will have this COVID-19 for a very long time. It’s not going to stop like a pandemic like ebola.”
Moreau advised the commissioners to begin taking a long-term approach to policymaking regarding the virus.
“From a policy standpoint, we need to think very long-term about what’s going on instead of these short-term quick fixes,” Moreau said.
Moreau said coronavirus vaccines are coming to Fayette County from federal, state and regional sources. The amounts of vaccine allocations from state and regional sources are determined by an expert panel under the direction of Dr. John Hellerstedt, the Commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Federal allocations had been going to long-term care centers such as nursing homes and assisted living centers. Nearly all residents and staff at long-term care centers in Texas have received a vaccine or have been offered one and rejected it. Moreau said all residents and staff of such facilities in Fayette County have either taken both doses by now or they have rejected the vaccine. Moreau said the federal allocations may begin going to certain pharmacies and doctor’s offices in the near future, which should expand vaccine access to the general public.
Moreau said Fayette County’s infection rate remains below one, which means that everyone with the virus is passing it to one or fewer other people on average.
“We’ve been below one for quite a while now,” Moreau said. “We are just below one. I would like to see it closer to 0.75. It’s been 0.9 for a while now. As long as we’re not jumping over one, the projection is we’ll have a decline in cases for the County.
Moreau raised a concern that not as many people seem to be getting tested. He said testing remains a crucial part of the fight against coronavirus. When people get tested and find out they are positive, he said, they tend to isolate themselves until the disease runs its course
“More testing eventually leads to less numbers,” he said.
In other business at Thursday’s meeting, Moreau and EMS Coordinator Josh Vandever said they were preparing for the weekend’s winter storm. Moreau said first responders may call on County road and bridge crews to help out in case bad weather causes problems on major highways such as Interstate 10 and US 290.
“We may need some heavy equipment, depending on how things go this weekend,” Moreau said.
Vandever said Fayette County EMS activated additional ambulance crews in anticipation of weather-related emergencies.
“Several of our people are not local,” Vandever said. “We’re going to have to plus-up our resources, but we don’t want to do it after the freeze starts, because we want to have those people here.”
He told Commissioners that the extra personnel would financially affect the County, especially for payroll. Vandever said the last hard freeze on Jan. 10 resulted in 22 ambulance calls over a period of a few hours.
“At one point we only had two ambulances in the county because two people were critically injured and had to go elsewhere,” Vandever said. “So we’re going to put a few more ambulances into serve and an extra supervisor in service. We’re going to try and keep the ambulances off the highways and the ice unless they are absolutely needed.”
Vandever said he has also been in close coordination with the Sheriff’s Office and the 911 dispatch center ahead of the storm.