Genesee/Orleans Public Health Director Paul Pettit reported a bit of welcome good news related to local COVID-19 trends at this afternoon’s Genesee County Legislature Ways & Means Committee videoconferencing meeting.
“If you look at the (tracking system) mapping around you can see that although our cases climbed collectively, our active cases are actually trending downward,” Pettit said. “That is a great sign as you’ve probably seen that in the numbers that we’ve had, where last week we were pushing eight to 10 to 11 (active cases) a day and this week it’s 1, 2, 3.”
Pettit said he is “very proud” of the department’s tracking system. (See daily update story below.)
“I’ve compared it to some of our neighboring counties and around the state, and we’re able to provide great data for folks in both our counties. We have the confirmed case layer and the active case layer,” he said.
The director was in attendance to advance a resolution showing that the NYS Department of Health has awarded the Genesee County Health Department funding in the amount of $27,883 for COVID-19 investigations, data management, overtime, quarantine support and supplies.
The resolution was passed unanimously by Ways & Means and will go to the full legislature for a final vote.
This money comes on the heels of $67,490 in state funding that was received a couple weeks ago.
While grateful for state assistance, Pettit said his department has been unable to acquire the amount of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) that it needs.
“We’re still terribly short, unfortunately. We’re working with emergency management closely; there is a little bit of flow coming through there (with) some reports of levels of PPE coming in for this Friday.”
He said it is a percentage of what the department has been ordering but “it still pales in comparison to what we have asked for and what we really need.”
County Manager Jay Gsell concurred, adding that finding PPE is a statewide problem.
“Our county EMO (Emergency Management Office) people have been constantly, constantly making inquiries, and asking and asking repeatedly,” Gsell said. “The state controls all this. Where is it? When is it coming here? They’ll just tell us that they’ve got tons of hand sanitizer. That’s about what it is.”
Gsell said that the county has been working with United Memorial Medical Center and other sources to get testing kits, but is getting no answers from the state Office of Emergency Management when it comes to PPE.
Pettit said the health department is fully staffed at this point (the legislature authorized additional employees through the crisis), and acknowledged a “lot of overtime, especially on the weekends with our nursing level and epidemiologists.”
He credited other Genesee County departments for assisting his agency, including county employees who are helping to drive health officials to the daily mandatory checks on those in quarantine and isolation.
“There are some tired eyes and a lot of yawning, and we’ve been going through a lot of coffee here at the health department, but beyond that we’re holding together,” Pettit said. “It’s a group effort and people are doing a great job in tracing down these contacts and containing them, which is the ultimate goal.”
In a related development, Legislature Chair Rochelle Stein said she signed an extension to Genesee County’s State of Emergency declaration to be in effect until May 12, as per Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive order.
