WATCH: Madison mayor, Huntsville area health professionals to discuss coronavirus response

Video Credit: WAAY ABC Huntsville, AL
Published on March 31, 2020 -

WATCH: Madison mayor, Huntsville area health professionals to discuss coronavirus response

WATCH: Madison mayor, Huntsville area health professionals to discuss coronavirus response


WATCH: Madison mayor, Huntsville area health professionals to discuss coronavirus response

We are interrupting regular programming with breaking news out of madison county.

>> county and city leaders are giving us an update on their response to coronavirus.

Let's listen in.

>> jeff birdwell: -- to covid-19.

Our speakers today will dr. pam hudson from crestwood hospital, mayor paul finley, city of madison, and jon howell, ceo of hemsi.

As you note that we are sitting six feet apart, according to cdc guidelines and our own practices of separate and sanitize.

Right now i'll begin with a brief update of where we are currently with the situation.

There are 951 confirmed cases in the state of alabama.

Of which 96 of those are confirmed cases in madison county with the result of one death in madison county.

At this point i'll go to descrvdr. pam hudson for comments.

>> dr. hudson: good afternoon.

Thank you, jeff.

You heard the madison county case count stands at 96.

Again, we expect that to continue to climb.

But good news is that only 13 of those patients are hospitalized at this time.

Your hospitals continue planning, most of the modeling seems to indicate that we can expect or surge, if we're doing to have one, in about two weeks' time.

Today we conference with public healthnd the army corps of engineers to talk about planning even beyond our surge capacity and there were three components of that.

One is bed capacity.

And we are in pretty good shape on that.

Both hospitals can surge, certainly the huntsville hospital system can surge considerably.

So we are not next in line for mobile hospitals, for example.

But we are continuing to plan in the occasion that things get further beyond our surge capacity.

Secondly, supplies.

And i'm happy to report that does seem to be improving.

We would really like to offer our thanks to local manufacturing, local business whoas who have reached out with offers of help.

We heard and are getting mask supplies from companieses like ppg, toyota, phoenix, and many others.

Also the testing supply pipeline seems to be improving as well.

The final piece that we are concerned about is staff.

This is a precious resource.

It is easier to make a mask than it is to make a nurse or a doctor or any other health care worker.

And so our strategy here is to keep them well.

That is especially important because health care is a collaborative and team activity starting with first responders.

It includes doctors and nurses.

It includes environmental service workers so that if we have one exposure inadvertently that can take out and sideline 10 to 50, maybe even 100 health care workers.

That's why we have been so clear making about making certain that if you think you're sick, to tell the health care provider, don't just show up as surprise.

So just a little background on that.

All those things that we talked about, beds and supplies and staff, are defensive tactics, if you will.

You heard the best offense is a good defense.

I think we've got a good defense here.

But again, the models seem to tell us that we can expect our surge in about two weeks.

So let's focus on offense.

Offense sells tickets, folks.

Identify cases.

If you're sick, seek help but do it the right way.

Call your doctor.

Find out what you should be doing.

Our testing sites are open.

Keep an eye peeled because they sometimes, depending on the supplies, they may be available one day but not the next.

So be patient with us.

Huntsville has their flu and fever clinics open.

And please, once you're tested, the test is not the cure.

You need to go home and isolate until you know that you're negative.

So those are very important.

So you can play offense in this.

Hand washing, i know you're getting tired of hear that same simple thing over and over again.

But it is our best offense.

Surface sanitizing, stay home if you're sick, and isolate.

Social distancing.

Please, the virus can't -- if i have the virus it can't get to jeff six feet away.

So that is another key offensive tactic that we have.

Cover and control your cough if you are sick.

Jeff, that's it.

Thank you.

>> jeff birdwell: thank you, dr. now we'll go to mayor finley from city of madison.

>> mayor finley: all right.

A couple quick things on behalf of the mayor tommy battle, chairman dale strong and madison county city council, we all continue to share information and each day we come up here and try to pass along as much as we can to you guys.

Let's start with business compliance.

This monday was the first day coming off of the mayor's seconded dict that shut some of the businesses down on saturday at 5:00.

We had a good day when it came to business compliance.

Both huntsville and madison did have a couple of businesses that we went to to talk to.

A lot of that comes through just, again, as we talked about, not so much policing but just the educational process with those businesses.

Once we talked to those businesses, they immediately made the changes that they needed to make.

You know, in many instances curbside delivery is still available.

And once we explained how they could use that and that worked, we didn't have any major problems with that in either one of our cities, regardless of maybe a couple things that were written about.

We continue to have hot spots.

In any area been the community.

So the second part of that is, the responsibility that we take as city officials working to go to the different areas that we might here that there's a congregation of more than ten folks.

Whether that be a city park, some of the school fields, in some instances it was the hoas where a basketball court may be there.

We continue to work and as we go there and typically educate folks on what their responsibilities are, we have strong compliance because most everyone in this area wants to get through this as quickly as we can.

Our chambers of commerce continue to be the holding point, repository for all the businesses wanting to make a difference.

Whether it's making hand sanitizer and getting it to the right folk, whether it's helping use their 3d machines to make some of the parts that are needed for masks.

Please, if you have an area where you feel like you might be able to help, the community we're using our chambers of commerce that in turn can grab that information and then get to it the right folks.

Scams, i'm very -- i've asked the community to continue to pay attention.

We're seeing e-mail, text, phone calls, where folks are taking advantage of this situation, whether it be covid-19 or in many instances now they're using what the government is talking about with the $1,200, hey, we can help you.

Click on this link that will help you with that.

Please don't click on anything where you don't know who sent it to you.

If you have any questions about that, you can call city hall and we can help you get some of that taken care of or our chambers of commerce.

And then it goes to the community responsibility.

I thought mayor battle did a great job yesterday talking about a lot of the things that we collectively as a community can do to help ourselves.

I think it starts with, if you don't have to get out, please don't.

Especially if you're in one of the high-risk categories, please don't get out.

That's the starting point.

As dr. hudson talked about, if you stay six feet away from folks, if you continue to wash your hands, that makes a huge difference.

But if you're not out seeing folk, that's even one step above that.

If you do have to get out, let's minimize the number of folks that go out together.

And again, we talked about that.

That was learning from this weekend.

So many folks wanting to take this time on a beautiful saturday and sunday to go to a lowe's.

Send one person.

Don't send the entire family.

Yes, you may have to make some decisions that in turn -- for the entire family.

Do i buy this plant or that plant.

But i think everybody is going to give you a little bit of benefit of the doubt.

Let's continue to work together to minimize the number of people that are out and giving the opportunity for this to spread.

You know, one of the things i talked about that would help us as mayors and county commissioners and chairmen is some of the hoas.

Perfect example is we had one of the hoas that has a great basketball court.

And we had a community say, hey, there's a big game of teenagers play ing there right now.

All we had to go is, one, go help the teenagers understand, guys, we can't do that.

But secondly, they have the ability to close that up and they did.

It's not just city parks and some instances, some of you hoas, if you'll please look at what you can do both from a playground equipment but also some of those basketball courts and areas of opportunity.

That's going to make a big difference, too.

Lastly, i'll talk about the responsibility of we as parents have for our kids.

You know, one of the things i realize with boys that are young adults is a lot of folks and kids have come back together.

Haven't seen each other for a while.

Typically on spring break or in the summer they want to get together.

They've been at auburn and uab and now they want to meet.

We need to help them understand that for the next few weeks let's not do that.

I asked my son yesterday, how do i get to the folks.

He said, you just did.

We have to do it individually in some instances.

There's a responsibility that we can take.

So if we will continue to watch those types of things and do as dr. hudson talked about, to continue to be -- to wash our hands, to stay six feet apart, we have the best opportunity to get through this as quickly as we can.

I'll end by giving you three website, madisona l.gov, all of vus a lot of information on those sites about covid-19 and anything else that you might need to learn.

Please use city hall and the county commissions as a way to share information.

With that said, jeff, that's all i have.

>> jeff birdwell: thank you, mayor finley.

Now we will go to jon howell, ceo of hemsi.

>> mr. howell: thanks, jeff.

On behalf of hemsi and first responder agencies let me assure you that we remained in service and continue to provide services during this time.

Hemsi is currently responding to somewhere in the neighborhood of 160 events a day.

That's about a 20% reduction in what we normally see.

And we are very grateful that our volume has been reduced.

And we have -- appreciate our community's efforts in following the department of public health guidelines, following the recommendations from our city governments and our state governments on trying to practice social distancing.

Staying a the home.

We feel like this is probably contributed to some of our reduction in call volume and we're very grateful because, as dr. hudson said, it's going to be about two weeks and that's when a potential surge could come.

And we want to try to flatten that out as much as we can.

So we need to continue to urge our community to help us.

And we need you to stay home for us.

We're going to be here.

Your ems service, fire service, police services are all going to continue to be here.

And we need you to stay home for us during this time as much as you can and follow the guidelines that the department of public health is putting out.

Follow the state health orders.

Follow the regulations or the guidance from our governments, to help us get past this virus and flatten this thing out.

I also want to mention that hemsi in particular has benefited from a lot of our citizens and companies in town who have taken time to reach out to us, to provide -- whether it was food for our crews, our equipment, we certainly appreciate all of those efforts and appreciate everything that they're doing.

Our supply ppe while stable now, i've learned that in a time like this we can never have enough.

So every day we're working on next week's ppe needs or next -- at the end of this week or we're working on what we're going to do in two weeks.

We're still projecting out and managing our supplies to make sure that we have plenty for our staff.

If you do have to call 911, and we only recommend you do that in an emergency, we would promote the use of 211 and other sources for information.

But in the event that you do have an emergency, know that if you call 911 they're going to ask you some questions that we didn't ask before all this started.

We're going ask some questions about if you have a fever, if you have symptoms, and we just need callers to answer those honestly and truthfully.

The best of your ability.

And if you don't know, it's okay to say that you don't know the answer to that right now.

When first responders come, they may stop before they arrive at your front door to put on some protective equipment.

It might be a gown or a mask.

And please accept that in the spirit that we're just trying to protect our staff.

We're very fortunate at hemsi that none of our staff has been tested positive.

We do have some staff that are isolated because they have been exposed to patients who have tested positive.

But right now they're still asymptomatic and we hope to get them back to work soon.

With that i just encourage everyone who is watching today to continue to practice the social distancing that has been p promoted, to continue to follow the guidance that's being put out for our community.

This is not an event that is going to be over tomorrow.

We still have a ways to go before we get through what may be the worst of this.

And if we can get through the worst of this without the big surge on the hospitals, our community will have been successful.

And that's ultimately what our goal is, is that we're not having to exceed our capacities at the hospital isn't having to exceed their capacities.

And we appreciate everyone doing their part.

And we would really encourage everybody to stay home for us during this time.

That's all, jeff.

>> jeff birdwell: thank you, jon.

Thank you for watching today.

We will be back here tomorrow at noon for another daily briefing.

Until then, any critical updates will be posted on the city of huntsville's covid-19 web page as well as the websites of our other partners here today.

Until then, stay safe, stay separate, and remember to sanitize.

At this point we'll take some questions.

Again, as you come to the mic please identify yourself and who you are affiliated with and we will allow one question and a follow up.

>> i'm brian lawson with whnt.

We've been getting a lot of calls, a lot of e-mails on this subject from people looking for help.

I think this is probably best for mayor finley but i'm glad to hear from anybody on it.

These are folks are expected to be at work and so we're getting e-mails from people that are either their loved one or they themselves are concerned about being in a situation where they've got a co-worker or other co-workers who theyness theyunderstand tested positive or they're in a work space where there's not a lot of social distancing going on.

I can't emphasize how many calls and concerns we're getting.

What they're asking us and i guess i'm directing at you guys is, what should we tell those people?

Is there somebody they can call?

Is there any help that you can offer?

Because as you described it earlier, if you have a choice, you know, choose the right way.

If you're in a more confined work environment, what do you do then?

I know it's not a simple question but any insight on that would be appreciated, i think.

>> mayor finley: i'll take a start at that.

We had a couple of instances where both employees or folks from the outside looking in said i'm not sure that we're as safe as we possibly could.

We work with adph on specific examples to the point where we are able to get information back to respective person and employer.

In one instance where there was some -- a little bit more ambiguity.

Adph was ready to make a personal visit to make sure that they were within compliance.

So i can just tell you right now that typically that's how we've handled things from, i don't know, jeff, if there's anything else you would go from that standpoint.

>> jeff birdwell: i don't think we can add any more to it than that.

That's where we would start.

Adph is the lead agency on this incident.

So they do have a lot of guidance out there.

I encourage everybody to visit their web page.

And you know, i agree with mayor finley, that's probably the best route for us to take at this point.

>> so for those folks looking for help, do you suggest they call the department of public health?

It's not unique to madison or madison county.

It's north alabama, department of public health is your suggestion?

How would you assess that for a family member or for somebody that is in that work situation?

>> jeff birdwell: my suggestion would be for those located in madison county, you can always reach out to our office and we can forward those as needed to alabama department of public health.

>> thank you.

>> nolan krain with waff 48.

My question is towards the ceo of hemsi.

It's awesome the numbers are down currently when it comes to the people you're helping but the amount of supplies that you're going through, do you have a number as far as x amount of masks per day, gloves, gown, and if there is a surge in the next two weeks, how are we going to be able to meet that demand when you continue to get more than 100 calls a day?

>> mr. howell: well, right now only about 20% of our calls are requiring the use of ppe.

We're still running a lot of calls every day that are just the standard calls that an ambulance service would run if the coronavirus -- if we had never heard of it.

So there's still automobile accidents, there are still traumatic injury call, still other medical emergencies, still people who have cardiac issues every day that are completely unrelated to the coronavirus.

So we're running right now at least our numbers are reflecting that we're only having to apply ppe on about 20% of our calls.

Now, we sometimes go through between 3 and 5 sets on a call.

The cdc guidelines require our personnel to remove their ppe before they get in to drive the ambulance and then they have to reapply it when they get back out to remove the patient.

That's just for the driver.

So there are multiple sets we go through a day.

We've gone through somewhere probably i would say 50 to 80 sets a day.

So we're counting for that burn rate right now.

And we're accounting for a little bit more than that.

And when i told you that we're planning right now to get our equipment continue to roll in.

So we're talking to suppliers and sources for our supplies daily, to map out and get confirmation on when our shipments are coming in.

I feel confident right now that we've got enough supplies to get us through the next seven to ten days.

Even if we see our numbers increase some.

And we've already got promised shipments of other components that are coming in that i feel confident we're going to have a supply chain that sustains us for the foreseeable future.

We've got great coordination with our ema, with our local hospitals, with our local city governments, so it's not -- we're not on an island ourselves.

We are collaborating with these other sources and they're bringing opportunities to us to say, you know, would you like to go in with us, we're going to ordinance number area large shipment of masks or other components and so there's a lot of working together that is going on to make sure that all of us have the supplies that we need.

>> and then my last question.

Are we scaling back at all the number of paramedics we have currently working?

And how many of them are in self-quarantine, if any?

>> mr. howell: we haven't reduced our workforce numbers, our deployed numbers at all.

We're still deploying the same number of ambulances per day.

In fact, we are probably deploying a couple of additional ambulances on some days.

We've had some units that were assigned to federal contracts that those federal contracts were turned off for a while.

We've got those ambulances that have joined us.

And our philosophy is that our -- the calls that we are running, that require us to put on our ppe are a little more stressful.

They take a little more time.

We want to distribute that workload as much as we can.

We don't want to put our people under any more stress than we have to.

So we're keeping our workforce number high right now.

It also gives us good surge capacity, if we do get any type of a spike in calls on a particular day.

So we're keeping our numbers high right now.

We're not reducing our workforce.

As far as paramedics who are isolating right now, we've got currently four who are currently on maybe day nine or ten of their 14-day isolation.

They are asymptomatic and all of them, we're checking with them every day, we check with them a couple of times a day to make sure they're monitoring for symptoms. every one of them want to come back to work as soon as they can.

They're all doing well right now.

>> sydney martin with channel 31.

My question is for dr. hudson.

Yesterday huntsville ceo dr. spillers said they have a staff member with coronavirus.

Have any others tested positive and are any in quarantine?

>> dr. hudson: we have one staff positive.

And we've got a few of our employees who tested positive from outside contact.

And they're sitting on the sidelines waiting for their 14 days to be up.

>> and then do you know if any of those are in quarantine and then what's the plan at crestwood for notifying patients or other nurses or doctors they've come in contact with about isolating?

>> dr. hudson: all hospitals have strong infection control plans.

And with the covid and the cdc guideline, alabama department of public health, anyone who is tested is technically being isolated and have limited contact.

Some people are doing that at home.

And if they're a person under investigation who might be admitted to the hospital, we carry out those same things.

Once there's a positive test there's really not much of a change.

If it's a negative test, we can stop a lot of those measures.

So it's not a question of adding more protection, it's the ability to eliminate some protection for those that test negative.

The alabama at department of public health has charge of the next phase.

So any positives the alabama department of public health investigates, they determine what the quarantine plan is.

So that's when you hear the quarantine word.

Because quarantine implies that there is some enforcement capability that's beyond people's willingness to comply.

So there's actually two levels for any positives, whether they're a health care worker or any citizen for us.

And a patient is first is going to be our infection control plan, secondly would be the department of public health backup.

>> can you just clarify real quick.

So one tested positive you believe from the hospital.

How many other hospital members have it and how many are in y isolation?

>> dr. hudson: what do you mean by have it?

>> you said one tested positive from the hospital.

And others are positive but you think they got it outside of the hospital.

>> dr. hudson: right.

So, for example, we have a couple of staff members who, as they have come back into town, a few weeks ago from travel to potential affected area, they're sitting on the sidelines until their 14 days is up.

So they were at risk even with a negative test, you're not negative one moment and then positive if you're looking for infectivity, you probably want to get the best results from the test so it would be five to seven days after you're ill.

>> only one is positive.

Those people who traveled out of town have not had a positive coronavirus test?

>> dr. hudson: we've had three positives at our facility.

Two were emergency department patients that went home to isolate, self-isolate.

And i'm guessing follow up with public health.

And then the one that's currently in the hospital.

>> that's a staff member?

>> jeff birdwell: okay.

I think she's answered it as best she can.

We'll move on to somebody else.

>> paul gattis from al.com.

Dr. hudson, you spoke about the peak coming at about two weeks.

What does that peak look like, i mean, from a numbers projection or whatever?

And are you speaking of huntsville, north alabama, of alabama as a whole, kind of what's that area that we're talking about?

>> dr. hudson: i don't know.

And yes.

The models and there are probably a number of different models out there, but they all seem to be coalescing around if you're going to have a surge in our area, and the models are probably not specific to one street or one city, because patients come and go to our community from all of north alabama and southern tennessee.

So all the models that you plug in the numbers and it comes out with a prediction, they seem to be coalescing that our biggest risk for a surge is right around that -- about two weeks from n now.

I'm pretty sure the coronavirus is not like check that model.

Will we have it or not?

I hope not.

All of the things we're trying to do is reduce our risk of having a spike that we cannot accommodate with normal hospital resources.

And even not just normal hospital resources but the surge capacity that we're all preparing for and spending every minute of every day making sure that we're ready if what the predictions of a high spike.

Now, how much?

I don't know.

Some of the numbers are -- appear to be off the charts.

Others are not vary -- they're just all over the place.

>> and just to follow up about the models.

I realize this is going to be an impossible question.

I'm not trying to trick you or anything.

But given that we've never seen something like this particular case, how much confidence can the health care community place in these models?

I mean, is it high level of confidence, do you pay with a grain of salt?

Can you give me perspective on how y'all view that information?

>> dr. hudson: every day that we have a low number of people hospitalized, your health care providers feel good.

I think i can speak for our first responders and our elected officials.

This is a day-by-day unfolding process.

And it is -- it requires a lot of preparation and it also requires a lot of patience.

Not to say, great, we only had an increase of x number of cases in the last 24 hours.

That is no reason to stop anything we're doing.

This is a long course.

This is a marathon and not a sprint.

And i hope that people are paying attention to that because this isn't a one day we get a piece of good news and say it's over and yippee.

This is about staying the course, hoping for the best, and preparing for the worst.

>> jeff birdwell: all right.

At this point we'll conclude this press conference.

Thank you for coming.

>>> you have been watching the daily briefing of the madison county and huntsville officials in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

A quick recap.

You just heard from dr. pam hudson from most of the time there from crestwood hospital.

At the beginning she started talking about the best offense is a good defense.

Meaning, that if we're doing what we need to be doing, if you're sick, get tested.

If you get tested, whatever the case is, stay in quarantine.

Also doing all of those other things they've been talking about, sanitizing, washing your hands.

Stay offensive out there.

But she also said, and she mentioned and it was repeated about the expected, if it happens, a surge that could happen within two weeks.

After two weeks.

We should see this surge in numbers.

In the meantime, she says hospital officials are meeting with the department of health and also the army corps of engineers in three different levels, three different topics there.

Bed capacity.

They said they're in good shape hospital-wise but they want to make sure they stay in good schaip.

Shape.

We know already the army corps of engineers have been building facilities just in case there's a need there.

They've been a lot of that in the state of new york.

Surgical supplies that the hospitals are in good shape.

And cued dose to the companies providing them.

She also talked about testing and that they're starting to see the pipeline is improving right now for testing.

And the third thing that she talked about is staffing.

Medical staffing.

Just making sure that they are protected, that they stay safe and she also reiterated that if you happen to be sick and you show up at one of these facilities, please tell them ahead of time so that they can stay safe as well.

>> and from the business aspect of it, mayor finley really echoing the message from himself and huntsville mayor tommy battle and county leaders saying that yesterday was the first full business day of that health order, statewide health order, new guidelines issued friday afternoon.

He got a lot of phone calls, concerned calls from you at home about certain businesses and congregating and stuff.

They said a lot of their officials, their city leader, their police department, deputies spent time at businesses yesterday focusing on educating groups, educating business on how to follow these guidelines to still keep business going in our communities.

They're also addressing hot spots, areas of high congregation, whether it's a park or hoa basketball court.

Getting out there really hoping people understand the need to self-quarantine, the need to keep that social distance, that six-foot separation.

And again, he was saying education, that's what they're focused on now.

Then comes verbal warnings.

Then you will get into your citations.

It's a repeated offense an arrest.

You could be fined up to $500.

The big point they're driving home is education on how important it is to social distance, to separate, to sanitize, stuff that we've been hearing since day when it comes to this.

And of course you know, it's all of our responsibility because we are all in this together.

>>> we're going to continue to follow this obviously.

There's a news conference this afternoon or is it a meeting this afternoon?

>> florence city planning commission called a special-called meeting.

That's going to take place at 4:30 this afternoon.

That is during our waay 31 4:00 p.m.

News.

We will have the latest from there.

Of course if anything happens, any other news briefings before this, you can count on us to bring it to you live right here for 24/7 headline on coronavirus and other happenings in our community.

Visit us online.

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