Reopening Montco? ‘We are not there yet’
EAGLEVILLE » As the COVID-19 epidemic continues to grip the region, decisions about reopening Montgomery County businesses and other institutions must be “data driven and evidence-based” in order to prevent the coronavirus from rebounding, a county official suggested.
“I so understand that everyone wants to get back to work, wants to get back to seeing their family and their friends.
But we are not there yet,” said county
Commissioners’
Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh, who as a physician has been at the center of the county’s efforts to combat coronavirus and provide citizens with the latest information regarding the outbreak.
“I go with the data. I’m trained to follow the data and the science,” Arkoosh said on Tuesday as she addressed media questions regarding the timeframe for easing social distancing and other mitigation measures and reopening local businesses.
“I go with the data. I’m trained to follow the data and the science.” - Montgomery County Commissioners’ Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh
Arkoosh, a graduate of University of Nebraska College of Medicine who also has a master’s degree in public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, echoed other leaders and health officials who’ve suggested the easing of restrictions must be accompanied by widespread testing, antibody testing to see who might be immune and increased contact tracing.
“In a perfect world, we would be able to do much wider testing, we’d be able to test anybody who thought they’d been exposed…anyone whose had any kind of symptoms or anyone who’s part of the critical workforce like hospital workers, paramedics, police officers and those types of folks who have been on the front line, just to make sure they were negative,” said Arkoosh, explaining tests for antibodies also are still being developed and it’s unclear if antibodies provide immunity and for how long.
“There are different ways to try to figure out how to do better contact tracing. Some countries are using electronic means, through cellphone apps that people download and voluntarily allow themselves to be tracked,” Arkoosh added. “These are all questions that we’re hoping to see answered to some degree before we start telling people to head out and go about your business. That’s part of why we say it’s a ways away.”
Arkoosh said viruses don’t care about county or state borders.
“We need to approach any decision to open up as a region,” Arkoosh added on Wednesday. “Unless we approach this as a big region, I think we’re likely to not be successful.”
While officials are awaiting the opening of a new COVID-19 testing site on Thursday at the Montgomery
County Community College campus in Whitpain, they are encouraged by the most recent data emanating from the tests that were completed at the county’s former testing site in Upper Dublin.
The Upper Dublin test site at Temple University’s Ambler campus opened on March 20 and closed on April 9. Through April 9, officials said, 4,844 people were tested at that site. Ninety-three-percent of the test results have been returned and revealed that about 16-percent of the individuals tested positive, down from a previous high of 24-percent on April 5 and 6, according to officials.
“Based on the results from our testing site, it appears that we may have peaked in terms of positive test results early last week. We have been on a downward course since then,” Arkoosh said. “To be clear, this just applies to the individuals that were tested at our community-based testing site. This does not necessarily apply to other communities such as residents of long-term care facilities.”
Although officials look at those numbers as “good news,” Arkoosh pointed out that the county still reported 99 new cases of the virus on Tuesday.
“It is not time to take any risks or chances. We’re just not there yet,” said Arkoosh, adding U.S. officials continue to learn from other countries that dealt with the virus earlier.
Arkoosh said some countries, such as Japan, have seen a resurgence of COVID-19
infections after those countries had relaxed mitigation measures and now are faced with re-implementing the measures.
“I think the last thing that any of us want to do is lift these restrictions too early and find ourselves two months from now right back in the situation where we have to close everything down again,” Arkoosh said. “The best way to get through this is to stay closed for now, wait until the number of cases falls to zero or near zero and hopefully, by then have in place widespread testing and easier ways to do contact tracing. Then we can start to open things back up in a data driven, evidence-based way. But we’re not there yet.
“I’m telling you, as a physician, what is the safest thing to do for the health of the public, if we open up too quickly, without waiting until we get down to zero and then a period after zero, I think we are almost certainly going to find ourselves in the position that Japan, for instance, is in today,” Arkoosh added.
Arkoosh urged residents to continue following social distancing measures to stop the spread of the virus and to prevent hospitals and first responders from being overwhelmed by a surge of COVID-19 cases.
“As anxious as we all are to get this thing over with, we are not there yet. So, please, please continue to do what you’ve been doing,” Arkoosh addressed county residents.
“It is not time to take any risks or chances. We’re just not there yet.”
- Montgomery County Commissioners’ Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh