Chesco health expert: COVID crisis is far from over
More tests could’ve prevented COVID-19 from becoming as large as a problem as it was with one health official saying there are theories it was appearing in the community as far back as January. In the meantime, hospitals compete against each other for personal protective equipment and education will look a lot different in the fall.
With more than three decades of health care experience, Rosemarie Halt serves as Delaware County’s health policy consultant for COVID-19 and its liaison with the Chester County Health Department, which is providing all coronavirus-related services for county residents. On Friday, she joined the League of Women Voters of Central Delaware County for one of their Hot Topic Discussions via Zoom.
“Unfortunately, if we had had enough testing kits, we could’ve maintained these current outbreaks ... and people could’ve been quarantined and we could’ve been able to prevent large-scale infection in the community,” she said. “We feel that probably there was infections in the area sometime in late January even though it took till March to really have the testing and things available for us to detect that.”
And that includes long-term care facilities.
“If we could’ve gotten into those facilities early and really cohorted and quarantined more people and had regular testing for staff, we could’ve probably been able to significantly reduce the number of outbreaks in those facilities and deaths as a result,” Halt said.
She said the personal protective equipment remains an issue as she herself is
the tracking these supplies in facilities in Delaware County.
As federal officials say by the fall, nursing homes and hospitals will have a 90-day supply of PPE, Halt said, “Our biggest goal is to keep the hospitals at a five-day supply right now. I think there’s a huge disconnect in what we have been able to receive from the federal government as far as testing kits and personal protective equipment. The supply chains are really stretched.
“We have hospitals competing against each other buying this stuff,” she said. “We have counties competing against each other ... It really should’ve been a much more coordinated supply chain from the federal government ... If we don’t get this figured out by the fall and we have a second wave, it could be really, really terrible.”
Speaking of the fall, she talked about how the virus will impact the next school year.
“I think that’s going to be a statewide review,” Halt said. “I feel like it’ll be like something that they’re doing in France. It might be like half days or one day, this group comes in and the next day, the other group goes in. I don’t know if we could totally go back to a normal school day by this fall.”
However, she said there’s recognition that for parents to go back to work they will need school as well as the students’ need to be educated and not lose a whole year.
She said Delaware County officials anticipate the collaboration with Chester County Health Department continuing until there is a vaccine and the pandemic status has been downgraded as she shared an outline of what Chester County has been doing for Delaware County related to the virus.
That includes case investigation and contact tracing, which Halt said is critical for an outbreak, and COVID-19 testing, data collection and analysis.
“All of our major health systems - Crozer, Main Line Health and Mercy Fitzgerald - were all doing testing and continue to do testing,” she said, adding that community testing is being expanded as seen by the Black Doctors Consortium’s 376 swab tests in Chester last week, the opening this coming week of a testing site in Upper Darby for those who don’t have a physician and the roll out of a mobile unit that will traverse various parts of Delaware County.
Halt explained that the antibody tests are still be developed with accurate positives but waivering with negatives. She explained that they are better used for after a person has been exposed to COVID-19 to know if an individual has had that exposure in the community. At some point, she added there will be wider spread antibody testing to know what the virus’ prevalence in the area is, especially in high-risk communities.
She said there is also a special team providing guidance to long-term care facilities, where a majority of the COVID-19 deaths have been. Most of these facilities in Delaware County are private, which means they are overseen by the state, although Chester County Health Department continues to offer guidance specific to coronavirus.
“They’re providing guidance on how to make sure infectious disease protocols are being followed, how to wear personal protective equipment, for example,” Halt said. “They are working on getting testing for both the staff and the residents of the communities. “
She also spoke of the challenges being experienced by the hospitals as they’ve had to tend to the heightened care for COVID patients while forgoing elective surgeries and having to compete with each other for PPE.
“Interestingly enough ... the emergency room visits are significantly down but those who are going are much sicker,” Halt said. “So people are waiting a long time to go to the emergency room because they are afraid of COVID.”
She reinforced that hospitals have reached a point where they are very good about infectious disease protocols and are working to ensure the safety of everyone.
“I think you will see, hopefully that you will be able to go back and have a regular doctor’s appointment pretty soon for those of you who have been waiting,” she said to her audience.
Halt thanked the community for staying home - it has made a difference.
“I do want to compliment everybody - thank you for flattening the curve, for staying home and doing your part,” she said. “That really did work. The fact that most of the cases that we have now are in the longterm care facilities means ... the general public has been doing their part.”