Task Force holds community update

HURON — The Beadle County Unified Task Force held a community briefing Friday afternoon at City Hall to discuss actions being taken in the community to combat COVID-19.
The task force invited a panel to be present to answer community questions. The panel consisted of Captain Mark Johnson of the Huron Police Force, the task force’s Public Information Officer, Huron School District Superintendent Terry Nebelsick, Dr. Josh Carr, Julie Miller from the Department of Health, Dr. Elyse Brock from Huron Regional Medical Center (HRMC), and Dr. Joe Carr.
Miller led off the meeting with a discussion of the prioritized testing within the state, which has followed the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) recommendations. Within the CDC recommendations, persons who are hospitalized, healthcare workers, active military members, and members of vulnerable demographics that present as symptomatic are receiving priority in testing. In questioning later, Miller admitted that there is no timeline for when resources would be available to allow for testing of all low-priority cases.
Drs. Joe and Josh Carr discussed what they have seen at the call center and test center in the first week of both being open. Calls were heavy early in the week, but have tapered down throughout the week. Both emphasized to county residents NOT to go to the emergency room if they feel they have symptoms. Call your primary care provider or the call center. They can direct whether you should come into your primary care clinic, come into the test center to be tested, or if you do potentially need emergency services. Dr. Joe Carr did emphasize writing down your symptoms before you come in for testing as the process can be intimidating and could potentially cause someone to forget symptoms or simply to freeze up in communication while being tested.
The tests at the county’s testing center have been typically processed with a 24-48 hour turnaround for results, but some have taken five days, so while most tests are processed quickly, those on the panel did emphasize that processing time is not consistent. The tests run through the county test site and sent to the state lab are done at no cost.

Dr. Elyse Brock was asked to discuss HRMC’s response to the virus. She explained that on a personal level, she would like to see all non-essential businesses shut down with essential business required to heavily disinfect and screen all employees (ask if they have been coughing, check temperature) as they enter the facility. She emphasized that was her personal opinion, and not that of the hospital’s.
Dr. Brock recounted the numerous procedures that the hospital has undertaken to curtail the spread of COVID-19. The list includes requiring all staff to come in one door to keep traffic controlled in the facility, screening all staff and visitors, significantly reducing the allowed visitors on grounds, rescheduling any elective procedures, adding in temporary partitions within the ER, and more. Brock emphasized that the HRMC leadership staff is meeting multiple times per week to discuss any further actions that may need to be taken within the hospital.
In questioning, Dr. Brock cleared up a few questions for residents who had written in. She said that the hospital has attempted to get a quick test machine, but that those will be distributed at a federal, and then at a state level, so it is possible that Huron would not get one in the first distribution of them. She also clarified numbers at the hospital, stating that they had six ICU rooms in total, four of which were set up specifically for COVID-19 patients. The hospital has seven ventilators, six adult and one infant/child.
Dr. Brock also emphasized the need for blood. There will be a blood drive hosted in the community on April 17 with more details to come, but she encouraged all to consider donating to help bring up reserves as they are falling behind at this time. Finally, Dr. Brock stated that Beadle County has submitted 125 tests for testing at this time.
With 125 tests submitted, the 21 positive tests in Beadle County, as the state released no more new cases on Friday in the county, would represent a 16.8% positive test rate. The state did confirm four more recovered cases in the county, which brings the county’s recovered cases to 17. With one death in the county, that would indicate that three Beadle County COVID-19 cases are still active.
Terry Nebelsick gave an update on the school’s work going on via distance learning. He stated that he “could not be more proud of the teaching staff” in their efforts to quickly turn their curriculum digital. “I am in awe watching it,” Nebelsick stated.
He has been meeting weekly with district leaders and in their meeting Friday morning, he reported a 95-96% contact rate with students. Nebelsick had plenty of praise for the relationship building that teachers are doing through digital media and spoke of students in the community coming up with innovative measures to get internet access to get to their daily assignments.
Captain Johnson stated that the task force intends to meet weekly to inform the community of any changes that happen throughout the week, and he hopes to change up the panel each week for different viewpoints for the community from the task force in each weekly community briefing.