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Home My WebLink About2020-11-25 - Minutes -CITY 4F FAYETTEVILLE ARKANS �Rr��IMsas MEETING MINUTES Fayetteville City Board of Health 11 /25/2020 4:30 p.m. Virtual Meeting Members: Hershey Garner, Lenny Whiteman, Huda Sharaf, Gary Berner, Stephanie Ho Ex-Officio Members: Meredith Lowry, Richard Taffner, Lioneld Jordan, Thomas Good Health Officer: Marti Sharkey Guest: Stephen Boss 1. Call to Order and Roll Call — Hershey Garner, Chair (5 minutes) 2. Vaccine discussion a. Phase 1 a has been extended for frontline workers and first responders i. Pharmacy's will give vaccine to doctors not employed by a hospital i. Will be stored at WRMC b. Phase lb will be for essential workers (k-12 school employees, college staff, daycare workers, grocery workers etc) and will be given at pharmacy's i. Will need to get with Washington County DEM to determine which pharmacies will get the vaccine. i. John Luther will be invited next week to attend meeting and discuss this ii. Concern on how pharmacies will handle this with their staff ii. Will be getting 90,000 doses that will sent directly to hospitals iii. Will get help with logistics for NW Arkansas and getting the word out on vaccination dates iv. Need to get clarification on those living in Dorms in colleges c. FDA meeting with Pfizer and December 18th and Moderna on December 19 i. Vaccines should be coming out 2 or 3 days after that ii. Access to vaccine can only be open for less than a minute — twice daily d. Phase 1 c — February — March — high risk medical conditions, adults 65 or older, incarcerated, and adults living in group homes, or crowded settings. 3. Approve minutes a. Motion to approved as presented 4. Status of cases a. Dr. Stephen Boss i. Long range model shows it peaking after Thanksgiving around 350 cases per day. Then we get a little bit of a decline, but then in post -Christmas post - New Years, we get a much larger peak up around 400 cases per day. That persists through the end of February. We then get big decline and run along at pretty high caseloads for the rest of the year between 200 and 100 cases per day for a long time ii. Vaccine Model — 2-year model i. Has an earlier and sharper decline Mailing Address: 113 W. Mountain Street www.fayetteville-ar.gov Fayetteville, AR 72701 i. Late 2021 - 50 cases per day or less for a long time ii. Based on 5000 doses / week iii. Need to emphasis that the epidemic doesn't end just because we start vaccinating people. It's not an immediate decliner and we're not going to eradicate the virus from these vaccinations either, iv. We have a long period ahead. We need to get the R-NOT level below 1 for the vaccines to be effective i. Currently is at 1.28 ii. .22 or .225 is approximately the percentage of people in the County that must be vaccinated to get our R-NOT below 1 5. School status discussion a. Springdale gone virtual till early December due to lack of teachers b. Fayetteville is still doing good c. Concern about post -Thanksgiving after these students travel and are around family 6. Testing update a. Dr. Sharkey i. Supplies on Sofia antigen tests are low and on back order ii. 4500 tests coming from all over the country on Monday iii. No testing tomorrow and limited hours on Friday iv. Numbers will look better than they really are v. Johnson and Johnson is coming out with a single dose vaccine 7. Messaging for the community -Update a. Dr. Sharkey i. Our main messaging focus now ought to be on continuing the discussion of small gatherings, social distancing, and continue wearing a mask through the holiday season ii. Emphasize that the vaccination program is going to work, but it's going to be methodical. We must be patient while it's underway, and that means maintaining the same kinds of restrictions that were become accustomed to in the last year i. Worried that people will get frustrated just give up and don't bother to get vaccinated with the second dose 8. PPE shortage discussion a. Letter has gone out concerning price gouging b. Gloves have been sent are being sent for vaccine vaccination 9. Other Business a. Roger Morris i. Uptick in deaths in Washington County ii. This month we have got within one, twice, from having been maxed out our facility iii. Washington County DEM brought over their Morgue Unit trailer i. Should be able to handle 40 bodies now iv. Could be a pretty rough couple of months for a lot of people v. Nursing homes is still a concern with the number of cases i. Have had three or four within the last 24 hours from one particular nursing facility vi. 227 deaths - these are numbers that we have actually worked because our institutions bring in people from Oklahoma, Missouri, Madison County, Benton County, and Sebastian County. We're going to have a little higher number of the State says because their numbers are just from Washington County vii. Death rate is up 300+ over last year at this time b. Hospitals i. Really tight numbers All region little over 100 Covid positive patients ii. ICU capacity 106 in use i. 2 days was at 122 (highest number of ICU beds in use in NWA) iii. WRMC has 3 Covid units open now with 55 beds. i. Can open a 41" unit iv. Anticipates a surge 2 weeks after holiday v. University Status i. Surpassed 900 tests ii. Discouraging travel but a lot of students have come in to be tested because they were going home iii. Lots of discussions about commencement exercises vi. NW Mana Clinics i. Pushing towards capacity and their ability to test more ii. Essential personnel, that were asymptomatic and exposed, could be tested on day five of their exposure. And if they get a negative test results, they can return to work with significant PPE requirements vii. Will meet again next Wednesday with Vaccine updates viii. Bar Closures. What is the city seeing? i. No changes in masking compliance due to the bars being closed ii. College age residents see to be the ones not wearing a mask in most cases ix. Stacy Ryburn i. What is the University doing again as far as the students coming back and what was the response to that letter you know sent out? i. Students on their own went remote. ii. Asked students not to travel but the came in droves to get tested iii. Student will likely travel and come back iv. Chancellor decided not to change anything v. Trying to think of ways to increase testing vi. Looking at Spring semester with a mass testing event x. Need to ask for a drive through testing event next year Adjourn