‘We Will See It In Our Community,’ Flagler Emergency Chief Warns of Coronavirus, Detailing Local Response

Two people in Florida–the Tampa Bay area–have tested positive for coronavirus.

Lord provided the briefing with County Health Department Chief Bob Snyder to the Flagler County Commission–which was missing two members–in a signal that the county was handling the soon-to-be pandemic as it would a natural disaster emergency. It was also speaking about it in terms of emergency powers and extraordinary responses that could, at some point, entail the cancellation or banning of large gatherings, though Flagler County–if not Florida and the rest of the nation–for now appears very far from that possibility. 

But there is no medical prevention of the virus. For both health and county officials, the means at their disposal are limited to awareness and education as the only means of prevention, and containment through such measures as self- or imposed quarantines or the cancellation of events and accommodation of workers’ needs for time off, or alteration of work schedules and enabling of work from home. 

There is no vaccine, there are no medicines that prevent or cure the virus. 

Coronavirus, or Covid-19, as it is also known (the 19 refers to its emergence late in 2019 in China) is overwhelmingly not deadly to those it affects, with a fatality rate currently at 1.4 percent, compared to 0.1 percent for the flu.  About 80 percent of those known to be affected have reported no symptoms or light symptoms. Nevertheless, when an illness turns into a pandemic, even fractional numbers have vast consequences: Some 80,000 people died from the flu last year in the United States alone–“the worst flu season that we had in 40 years,” Snyder said. 

“What does this mean for Flagler County?” Lord said, pointing to Snyder: “In the state of Florida, the health department is the lead for all public health emergencies such as this. So they take the lead on the public health side. But that doesn’t mean the county is out of this, either. We are using the same emergency management structure we use for hurricanes, tornadoes, any other disaster. We’re using the emergency management teams and all of our contacts to help plan for impacts to our community, coordinating in collaboration with all of our different partners and public messaging.” 

Emergency management has created a “pandemic working group” that includes fire rescue departments, law enforcement, AdventHealth hospital, the Free Clinic, the county’s human resources department, the school district and others (human resources is included because absenteeism could impact the county’s ability to provide services).  

County Commissioner Donald O’Brien inquired about county emergency powers in the current circumstances. “Are there things that we might have to consider or think about? I don’t know what our statutory responsibilities are,” he said, raising the possibility, say, of a private organization hosting a public festival that might draw hundreds of people at a time when that might no longer be safe (as in Italy and other hard-hit nations, where gatherings of a certain size have been banned): could that draw an emergency powers response?

“Yes,” County Attorney Al Hadeed said, “you can ask them not to do it, then you do have those tools that I mentioned, statutorily authorized, so that you could actually get the event cancelled.” 

Would it require a meeting of the board? 

“It’s good practice to do it that way because then there’s more consensus and strength behind that declaration,” Hadeed said. In this kind of scenario, which involves people’s behavior as opposed to a storm or a hurricane that may call for evacuations, “they are materially different in content so I’d recommend that you’d do it as a board, but the law does allow, and our ordinances do allow that when there’s an inability to meet for whatever the reasons are, that the chair is authorized to issue an emergency [declaration],” but the board has to convene soon after that to ratify or modify the declaration. 

The county is not buying supplies or taking unusual budgetary steps at the moment. The general public should not be using masks unless individuals are sick, Lord said. But the county’s health care providers have been placing orders for extra masks. “They are at a higher risk because they are dealing with sick patients on a daily basis,” Lord said. “There is no secret cache of stuff that we can at this point in time tap into. If it becomes a much larger crisis, there’s strategic national stockpiles that provide masks and stuff like that again for health care providers. All the proactive steps we take will have to come out of department budgets or the county’s budget eventually.” But right now there are no “significant” costs to county government. 

Meanwhile, the coronavirus emergency remains “a rapidly evolving situation” that changes daily, Lord said. 

It is a new virus strain that emerged out of the common flu. The World Health Organization declared it a public health emergency of international concern. “Any time now I’m quite sure they’ll call it a pandemic, that trigger will fall eventually, which just means it’s spread worldwide,” Lord said. “They haven’t officially said that yet but it’s headed that way. Don’t be surprised that becomes the leading news story at any moment now.” 

On Sunday the state surgeon general declared it a public health emergency in Florida, where as of Monday, 23 people had been tested, and the state was awaiting results on another 18.  

As Lord spoke with the data he had in hand, there were almost 80,000 cases in China alone, 62 in the United states, with one death. But underscoring what Lord himself had cautioned is a rapidly evolving situation, it wasn’t but a few hours since he spoke before the official numbers had vaulted to near 90,000 cases worldwide, 88 in the United States, and two deaths in the United States, both in the Seattle area. 

“We all know how it’s spread: through droplets from an infected person to another individual, from a  cough or a sneeze, and you just need to be as close as 6 feet for this virus to spread,” Snyder said. The symptoms are flu-like–cough, sneezing, difficulty breathing. The incubation period is between two and 14 days. “So the global efforts over the last months has been to contain the spread and impact of the virus spreading.”

If one is exposed, notify your healthcare provider, tell about your travels, avoid contact with others, don’t travel when sick, cover your mouth and nose when you sneeze (Snyder even gave a demonstration of how to properly sneeze), wash your hands vigorously with soap and water (hand-washing can reduce infections by a significant percentage). 

“We just preach this so much at the health department: if you’re sick, stay home, do not come to work and possibly infect others,” Snyder said, though that’s easier said than done for a very large number of working class employees in the service sectors without the sort of benefits higher-earning professionals–or workers in all other western economies–enjoy.

“Service industry workers, like those in restaurants, retail, child care and the gig economy, are much less likely to have paid sick days, the ability to work remotely or employer-provided health insurance,” the New York Times reported on Sunday. The disparity could make coronavirus “harder to contain in the United States than in other rich countries that have universal benefits like health care and sick leave, experts say. A large segment of workers are not able to stay home, and many of them work in jobs that include high contact with other people. It could also mean that low-income workers are hit harder by the virus.”

In case the virus is suspected locally, the Flagler County Health Department would “get into high gear and begin an investigation” if three or four factors are detected: the clinical symptoms or close contact with a confirmed coronavirus patient within 14 days of symptom onset, or one has traveled to or from a geographic area hard hit by the virus, like China, Italy or Iran. Individuals will get swabbed and tested. Starting this weekend, three sites in Florida are testing for coronavirus. The health department will do the swabbing (or a health care worker will), taking the samples to Jacksonville. 

The two individuals in Florida suspected of having the virus are in self-isolation at home for 14 days. 

The overall risk to the United States as of last week was “minimal,” according to the Surgeon General, but that was at a time when there’d been no person-to-person spread of the disease. That’s no longer the case: now there is community spread, even in Florida, which means the actual, origin of the virus in those cases can’t be traced, say, to someone returning from China. 

“There’s no doubt this is a very serious situation,” County Commission Chairman Dave Sullivan said. “Everybody needs to–all our citizens–take it seriously., listen to the recommendations that you’re making and follow them. We’ll just have to keep on it like we did in any big emergencies. It’s a big emergency situation.”