Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
2 counties partner in fight
Leaders from two neighboring suburban counties on Thursday formally announced a cooperative agreement that will allow Chester County to provide COVID-19 health services to Delaware County residents in the absence of a health department there.
“Chester and Delaware counties have a long history of working together and supporting each other in times of need, especially when it comes to public safety and public health,” said Chester County commissioners Chairwoman Marian Moskowitz, as her colleagues and two members of the Delaware County Council stood nearby at a morning press conference.
“Together, we have trained, planned and practiced for a situation like this,” Moskowitz said of the coronavirus outbreak that has affected everyday life in the two counties in profound, and per
haps unimaginable, ways. “So knowing this, it made complete sense to start a conversation with our Delaware County colleagues last week to see how Chester County’s Health Department could lend support to our neighbors.”
The two counties submitted a request to form a partnership for COVID-19 activities to the state Department of Health and Gov. Tom Wolf’s office last weekend. On Wednesday, approval was granted.
“In life, people are quick to get behind you if you are winning the game,” said Delaware County Council Chairman Brian Zidek at the press conference, held in the Chester County Government Services Center, where about 35 staff members of the county health department are at work responding to the deadly virus. “But the true measure of people is how they act when the chips are down.
“I would like to say thank you, a heart felt thank you from the citizens of Delaware County to the citizens of Chester County, to the commissioners of Chester County, to the Department of Health Department of Chester County” for coming together to help deal with the bureaucratic challenges of fighting the virus outbreak, Zidek said, as county commissioners Josh Maxwell and Michelle Kichline, as well as Council Vice Chairwoman Monica Taylor, looked on.
“Once we are though this, I will encourage all the residents of Delaware County to give a hug, a high five or a fist bump to the residents of Chester County,” Zidek said, in addition to thanking the county employees in Media.
What the arrangement will mean, primarily, is that Delaware County will now have access to the same information and manpower that Chester County does from the state dealing with the virus. As it stands, because Delaware County does not have its own health department, the state is legally constrained from passing on information about things such as the number, age and location of its residents who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Starting this weekend, that information will be shared with Chester County health staffers, who can then pass it along to employees and officials in Delaware County.
“At times it felt as if we were wearing sunglasses in a dark room as we tried to figure out what to do next,” Zidek acknowledged of working against the virus without a health department. “We had a suboptimal ability to respond to this crisis without a health department.”
But Zidek declined to lay blame at past county administration that rejected calls for formation of a health department.
“There will be time in the months and years to come to Monday-morning quarterback this and look at what we did right and what we did wrong. Maybe at that time lessons can be learned,” he told reporters in the room. “But at this stage we are just trying to do everything we can to keep our folks safe.”
Zidek said that even though his Delaware County colleagues were in agreement that such a department needs to be formed in the county — one of more than 50 counties without one but the last of the Philadelphia suburban counties to form one — it would take more than a year to get a certified health department off the ground there.
Under the agreement, which was approved by the Delaware County council on Wednesday and will be most certainly be approved by the commissioners at their next meeting, Chester County will provide such services as COVID-19 expanded testing, COVID-19 case investigation and surveillance, COVID-19 quarantine designations, COVID-19 public health communication, daily monitoring of emergency room volume and hospitals in Delaware County and a public call center.
The agreement means that communication efforts to the residents of the county will improve, and that there will be resources available for residents and community organizations there to go to for answers about health-related issues surrounding the virus.
There will also be coordinated meetings to share data and analysis between staff in the two counties, including test results, and expanded call-answering services, said Jeanne Casner, head of the Chester County Health Department, in expounding on what her department is prepared to do for the Delaware County partners.
“We are ready, willing and able and quite honored to be able to do what is truly a public health response, in ignoring our boundaries and really opening it up to serve a critical area in Pennsylvania,” Casner said.
Moskowitz, in her remarks, stressed that the arrangement would not mean that resources are taken away from work done in Chester County on the virus, which has infected 10 residents in six municipalities in her county to date. “We analyzed our efforts, processes, and resources to date, and realized that Chester County does have sufficient excess capacity” — staff, infrastructure, and experience — “to handle Delaware County’s public health needs as well as Chester County’s needs, during this outbreak.”
Chester County will be financially reimbursed for the expense of the work it does for Delaware County not covered by state or federal grants until the outbreak is over.
“Once we are through this, I will encourage all the residents of Delaware County to give a hug, a high five or fist bump to the residents of Chester County.” — Brian Zidek, Delaware County Council chairman