Will County Public Health & Safety Committee met Sept. 2.
Here is the minutes provided by the committee:
I. CALL TO ORDER / ROLL CALL
Chair Donald Gould called the meeting to order at 10:13 AM
| Attendee Name | Title | Status | Arrived |
| Donald Gould | Chair | Present | |
| Beth Rice | Vice Chair | Present | |
| Mark Ferry | Member | Present | |
| Amanda Koch | Member | Present | |
| Meta Mueller | Member | Present | |
| Sherry Newquist | Member | Present | |
| Annette Parker | Member | Present |
II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
Mr. Ferry led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
1. WC Public Health & Safety Committee - Regular Meeting - Aug 5, 2020 10:00 AM
RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Sherry Newquist, Member
SECONDER: Annette Parker, Member
AYES: Gould, Rice, Ferry, Koch, Mueller, Newquist, Parker
IV. INFORMATIONAL REPORTS
V. OLD BUSINESS
The New Business was discussed prior to the Old Business.
1. Monthly Update from Sunny Hill Nursing Home
(Maggie McDowell)
Ms. McDowell read the attached report into the record.
Mrs. Ogalla asked how are the residents doing? I am used to being there on a regular basis and seeing everybody. It has to be hard on them.
Ms. McDowell responded this has gone on for seven months. It has been seven months of isolation with families not being able to come inside the facility. We are doing window visits, video chats and looking at other means. There is still social distancing. No one is able to hug their loved one and it is not the same. That type of isolation invariably takes its toll in various insidious ways where people are getting more depressed. Those are things we continue monitor and assess. We see people’s anxiety exhibited in more behaviors and how they respond to situations. It is extremely impactful. You have to weigh the risk and the benefits and it is a conversation I have with families. We had a resident whose daughter was getting married. It is a once in a lifetime event; how do you miss that? You can’t go back and replay it or be a part of it later. I spoke with the individual with my administrator hat on and explained the risk of doing it, but not advising against it. From a practical aspect I put on my mom hat as someone who would not miss my son or daughter’s wedding, COVID or not. What are the implicates; if you attend the wedding? You can make your decision, but it means you will be put on a PUI status when you come back. As far as that resident was concerned that didn’t change much from the current day to day situation, other than he would spend more time in his room. He decided to go to the wedding, he went to the PUI status for 14 days. As this continues and the weather changes, as we move through the phases, we are looking at creating an environment indoors where people can physically visit because it will not be feasible to do outdoor visitation. It is taking its toll on everybody at this point. Most of our residents have been through a lot of trial and tribulation over their lifetime and for a lot of them it is just one more thing they have to contend with. None of them like it, but everybody is adjusting.
Sunny Hill Monthly Report September 2, 2020
(Discussion)
2. Monthly Update from Will County Health Dept.
(Sue Olenek)
Ms. Olenek stated the Will County Health Department has a positive COVID case, which originated at the 501 Ella Avenue building, our first in a very long time. We have done our usual precautions and due diligence in terms of close contacts; possible exposures and we are working through that. This morning, I was on the ROE superintendents meeting. We are working with them and have provided all sorts of guidance, both in writing and via consultation. We have our point of contacts figured out and things are going well. Some schools are meeting in- person, some are remote and some doing blending. Bronner joined them on the call this morning and the schools are getting the information on the CARES funding. We are working through the enforcement process for COVID complaints. Over the weekend I received multiple e-mails, videos and phone calls from people complaining about establishments, which is a good thing. We received videos where people were sitting inside at bars, after Governor Pritzker put additional restrictions in place effective last Wednesday. In one of the videos the bar was full of people and none of them had masks, even the bartender did not have on a mask. We have an enforcement, complaint process and we are working through those as we speak. There have been a lot of questions and inquiries on how the state is calculating the positivity rate for our region. Today I will be on a webinar with the State Health Department. I hope to get the answer to that question. I don’t have time to look at the positivity rates for both regions and do my own calculations. I assume they are doing it correctly, but over the past couple of days I have had some questions. We all need clarification on how those calculations are taking place. I have been communicating with Mr. John Bevis, Executive Director of the Kankakee County Health Department. We have an open line of communication and we are sharing things we are doing so we are both on the same page. We have some expanded testing the in County. The IDPH is sending a mobile unit to Will County on Friday and Saturday. Details of where the mobile unit would be and requirements were given. Our website has a listing of the congregate setting and public testing sites. Today I am sending out an appeal letter. This letter is an appeal by me as the Executive Director of the Health Department. I am appealing to people to do the right thing. It takes different approaches to get to people and have them to do what you need them to do. Some people pay attention to science and reasoning and others pay attention to fines and compliance and some pay attention to an emotional appeal. This letter is not an emotional appeal, it is an appeal. When you receive the letter, via e-mail, please forward it to your networks. I want this letter to go far and wide. If it causes a handful of people do the right thing, it will help reduce the risk of transmission. I hope it is more effective than that. Opioid overdoses have been up throughout the COVID pandemic period, addiction is one of our social ills. There are very few places in Will County for people without health insurance to find outpatient services. Our behavioral health department will be ramping up an outpatient program for substance abuse at the Health Department. We met with Kluber and Leopardo yesterday; we had an initial 12-page punch list after we moved in and it has been reduced to three pages. There are things that need to be done by Leopardo, Seamans and some by our facilities management. Things are going well. We are hoping to get the punch list completed as soon as possible. At our new building we have silver signage with our logo and says Will County Health Department. We put up signage at the Community Health Center building, with the logo, but is says Will County Community Health Center. I think buildings need signage so there is less confusion and it looks really nice. We did that has part of a capital grant we received. Last night we had a Bio-actional result. Bio-Watch is a national program that the Health Department belongs to. There are Bio-Watch collection sites throughout the nation, the state and within our county. They test on a daily basis for biohazard or items that may be used in bioterrorism. Occasionally, we get an actionable result. We received notice last night and had to get on a biowatch call with the local group, IEPA, EMA, local law enforcement etc. After that call we went on a national call to review the incident. It is a very formal process. There is a script we follow. Only certain people are allowed. No one can be on the call just listening for pleasure. There is no action on our part needed. I can’t give you any details, but at this point we see no threat.
Ms. Mueller asked I am receiving complaints about violations of the COVID restrictions and I am not sure what to tell people to do.
Ms. Olenek replied all the information will be in the appeal letter I am sending out today. We have a hotline people can call. We are trying to streamline things because I don’t want people calling all kinds of numbers. The hotline is at our Joliet office. The information will be relayed from our hotline number to the appropriate branch office. When someone makes a complaint about a business, if the complainant gives their contact information we will be back to complainant and let them know we were out there. This is part of our regular complaint process whether it is about a neighbor and garbage or sewage surfacing somewhere. We will not give them a lot of details about what happened, but we let them know we made contact.
Ms. Rice stated I want to acknowledge your commitment. This is a very challenging time from a public health perspective and I want to thank you.
Ms. Olenek indicated she would relay Ms. Rice’s comments to the leadership team and staff.
Mrs. Ogalla stated it sad that people are reporting what people are doing. If you happen upon a business and they are not wearing masks it could be a one-time occurrence. The restaurants and bars are where you are seeing a lot of these issue come up, more than other places. I understand the issue of the virus. What I don’t understand is these particular businesses are so hard hit with restrictions in place, we are going to lose a lot of them. I had restaurants and bars in my town shutdown during the initial shutdown, they were able to reopen first outside and then inside, now they are looking at closing again. It is easy for people who have been working the whole time, it is easy for government employees who have been paid the whole time. During part of the shutdown we had county employees sitting at home, not working and still being paid. It is easy for those people who were unemployed and got the additional $600. People have to understand, people have to live and you have to be able to provide for your family. Those small businesses who might be a restaurants and bars, they are struggling. As a society we need to live with this virus and we cannot continue to hide from it. It is a virus, like other viruses. They all spread. I know this virus spreads more quickly or easily than others. We have to live. I don’t know when this is ever going to go away. I find it disturbing some people like to run around and cause issues for others. People who are desperately concerned about it should just stay home. You provide us information daily regarding the number of cases. I would like a more comprehensive report to include: where the cases are, what region of the county; it would be more beneficial to see it on a bar graph. It would be great to see how many people were tested last week and were positive and how many the week before who were positive. I asked for the number of people tested who are asymptomatic and remain asymptomatic. You said you are not given that information. It is frustrating because many people would not even get tested except for the fact that the testing is available. I know someone who signed up to get tested, went to the testing site, gave his ID and insurance and was asked how much money he made. He said he would not give that information. Why is that question out there. Do we know how many people are retested? How many people are being tested on a regular basis? If I decided I wanted to get tested every week, would you know?
Ms. Olenek replied no, we would not know.
Ms. Ogalla clarified we just know six people were tested and two were positive is all we know.
Ms. Olenek stated if one of those were positive, we don’t know if they were tested three times before and were negative. At some point, when we have time to look at the data better, we can sift through all of that. Right now, we don’t have that information.
Mrs. Ogalla stated when we are looking at the different orders coming down, we don’t have all the data and it is hard. I think it is one of the things that makes it hard for residents to decide if they should go out or not. Do we know how many people have been contacted through the contract tracing and suggested they get tested?
Ms. Olenek responded no; we don’t know. All of these things are dynamic and going on every single day. The contact tracers don’t have time to use hashtags to determine if they called someone who was tested before. It goes into a huge database system. At some point, the data will be bore out. We don’t have the information. The Will County Health Department has very limited access to the system but we don’t manage it or drill down into the data. It is the INET system used by the IDPH.
Mrs. Ogalla stated it is odd to me that the positivity rate in Kankakee and Will Counties is higher than the positivity rate in Cook County. Are we having less people tested as a percentage? Is Cook County having more people tested as a percentage? I am confused. The density in Kankakee County is far less than Will County and Will County is far less dense than Cook County. Do we know that we are testing less or more?
Ms. Olenek replied as I said earlier, I have a question about the calculation of the positivity rates and I hope to get it answered today or very soon. You have to remember we went to further restrictions based on the positivity rate being higher than 8% over three days. If you go to the IDPH website it has the regional metrics. That can give you a lot of information. It is not just positivity rate, it has to do with incidents of new cases per 100,000, ability to see people in the hospitals and a lot of other metrics. I suggest people go to the IDPH website because it has a lot of good information and metrics and information on how that is calculated.
Mrs. Ogalla stated this is a very difficult thing, it has been going on forever and it seems like it is never going to end. That is the frustration many people feel, especially those who have had their livelihoods restricted, while others have been able to go on. That is the difficult thing.
Ms. Olenek stated nobody wants this over more than we do. This has taken a toll on all of us. We are in the ninth month of a pandemic. It is extremely difficult. Usually, our emergency responses last a couple of months.
Mrs. Parker asked was contract tracing used to decide the mitigations against bars and restaurants? Did they just say bars and restaurants because they are places people gather?
Ms. Olenek replied before the IDPH issues those restrictions, they talked with us. They asked us what our contract tracers were finding. Where is this happening? Days before this came out, they were in contact with us. We talked with our contract tracers and their managers and the largest problem they were seeing was a lot of people were congregating in bars and restaurants without masks. It seems punitive to some people, but those bar owners had the opportunity prior to the restrictions to ask people to wear masks unless they were drinking. I asked my daughter, who has gone out to the bars if anyone is wearing masks, are the servers wearing masks and she replied no. She said the bartenders were wearing masks. Our highest number of positive cases in Will County is with 20 to 29-year olds. The mitigation measure was specific to what we are finding out in contact tracing.
3. Opioid Update
(Dr. Kathleen Burke)
Dr. Burke thanked Ms. Olenek and her staff. I was tested last week in Lockport and everything went very smoothly. They do ask your income but I think it is for the purposes of the health center. It was not invasive and I got my results in three days. I have been telling you about the recovery coach training program. We have nine Will County agencies, 20 intern openings and 15 recovery coaches in training programs. I need more. If anyone knows someone who has a substance use disorder or is a family member of someone who has a substance use disorder and has been affected by the opioid epidemic, we are looking for those folks to be interns. They need to be in recovery for 18 months to two years. This is a $15 per hour job and it prepares people to become a recovery coach, with GSU training. If you know anyone looking for an opportunity like this, please let me know. We have people going into the community directly, they are teams of recovery coaches going to the hotspots. The hotspots are the locations where there are higher numbers of opioid overdoses occurring, or they are communities we have not reached out to and been able to do training in, in a traditional way. We have partnered with the Salvation Army, Veterans Commission, the homeless shelters, Will County Center for Community Concerns and all our local food pantries. Because of COVID, the food pantries have turned out to be an extremely successful venue there is a high demand. They are increasing the numbers around the community. We have a popup at each of the food pantries and food drives. In July and August, we distributed 1,700 doses of Narcan. That is more than I did in two years through individual training. These people are trained and receive two doses each. I am very happy with the success of this project. The folks staffing it are also recovery coaches, but they have other jobs and do this as a part time contractor. Joliet is our hot area, they have the highest number of overdoses in our community. We have been to Braidwood, Elwood, Wilmington and Bolingbrook during July and August. We are branching out as we are invited into the community. It is very important for us to be invited and not show up telling community members that they need Narcan, that has never been successful. This opportunity gets to the people still in active addiction. That is who the state is focused on as well as my work. We were invited to do a presentation to the City of Joliet Public Safety Committee. This is the first time they were interested, because they saw our Naloxone people in the field. We are assisting the police departments in getting in touch with people. They are identifying them for us and we are reaching out to them. We are also routinely called on the overdoses that occur in the Joliet motels, where the homeless are living right because the shelters are having trouble maintaining distancing to be able to have people stay overnight. This team is a tremendous resource to our community. I am very pleased the State gave us this money and it has been successful. What we have learned is there is a huge need for temporary, immediate housing for dislocated people because of the virus and the locations they normally are housed are being closed or they are on the street. For people on the street with a substance use disorder we try very hard to do harm reduction with Narcan and then support through education, when they are ready. Opioid overdoses are up and deaths are up. We are not yet current on deaths, but we are seeing at least seven overdose deaths each month, which is more than we normally see. Our regular overdoses are also up; in 2019 14% of our overdoses were fatal, you can image how many we will be talking about by the end of the year. Naperville has had what we call safe passage, a program where the police department deflect people and help them into treatment. They have had their own program longer than we have had our program. They approached us because their grants are up and they are interested in partnering with other municipalities in developing a program that will sustain itself and be in 501-c-3. We had our initial conversations with them and when I have more to report, I will.
Ms. Mueller asked if you have information on the positions you are looking to fill, please send that out to us. I would love to share that in the community.
Dr. Burke indicated she would send it again.
OTHER OLD BUSINESS
NEW BUSINESS
The New Business was discussed prior to the Old Business.
1. Renewing Contract for Nursing Services (CNA, LPN & RN) at Sunny Hill Nursing Home
(Maggie McDowell)
RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS]
TO: Will County Board
MOVER: Mark Ferry, Member
SECONDER: Meta Mueller, Member
AYES: Gould, Rice, Ferry, Koch, Mueller, Newquist, Parker
2. Renewing Contracts for Disposable Incontinence Supplies for Sunny Hill Nursing Home
(Maggie McDowell)
RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS]
TO: Will County Board
MOVER: Meta Mueller, Member
SECONDER: Sherry Newquist, Member
AYES: Gould, Rice, Ferry, Koch, Mueller, Newquist, Parker
3. Renewing Contracts for Disposable Washcloths for Sunny Hill Nursing Home
(Maggie McDowell)
RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS]
TO: Will County Board
MOVER: Sherry Newquist, Member
SECONDER: Annette Parker, Member
AYES: Gould, Rice, Ferry, Koch, Mueller, Newquist, Parker
4. Renewing Contract for Exam Gloves for Sunny Hill Nursing Home
(Maggie McDowell)
RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS]
TO: Will County Board
MOVER: Meta Mueller, Member
SECONDER: Annette Parker, Member
AYES: Gould, Rice, Ferry, Koch, Mueller, Newquist, Parker
5. Renewing Contracts for Medical Products for Sunny Hill Nursing Home
(Maggie McDowell)
RESULT: MOVED FORWARD [UNANIMOUS]
TO: Will County Board
MOVER: Meta Mueller, Member
SECONDER: Mark Ferry, Member
AYES: Gould, Rice, Ferry, Koch, Mueller, Newquist, Parker
VIII. OTHER NEW BUSINESS
IX. PUBLIC COMMENT
Mrs. Adams announced there were no public comments.
X. CHAIRMAN'S REPORT / ANNOUNCEMENTS
XI. EXECUTIVE SESSION
XII. ADJOURNMENT
1. Motion to Adjourn at 11:16 AM
RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mark Ferry, Member
SECONDER: Meta Mueller, Member
AYES: Gould, Rice, Ferry, Koch, Mueller, Newquist, Parker
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