At the County Commission meeting yesterday, Director of Social Services, Shannon Ernst reported to Commissioners that there has been a total of 55 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 in the community since March. Currently, there are 21 active positives, one person is hospitalized, 32 people have recovered from the virus, and one person has died.
Ernst, along with County Manager Jim Barbee, is leading the county effort to combat the effects of the virus in the community. They have implemented weekly testing at the fairgrounds, perform the contact tracing, and are working on back up support for the local families as their students return to school.
Currently, the county is offering free community testing at the Fairgrounds on Tuesdays and is hoping to boost the number of tests from 150 per week to 200 per week. “It’s still taking five to seven days to get the results back, but surprisingly, this week we ran testing on Monday and received those tests back yesterday (Wednesday),” said Ernst.
Emergency policies implemented by Governor Sisolak rely heavily on the positivity rate in each community – a data point that shows the number of positive cases in a community compared to the number of community members tested. The higher the number of tests and the lower the number of positive cases, the less restrictions the Governor places on the community.
Along with the work it has taken to implement the testing, Ernst has also put together an intensive contact tracing program that has also proven beneficial assigning positive cases to their appropriate communities, a move that accounts for the constant fluctuation community members may see in the reporting. When a person tests positive, Ernst and her staff find out where that person lives, who they have come in contact with and then request self-quarantines, testing as many of those people as possible in order to keep the virus from spreading.
Additionally, in the process of their tracing efforts, county staff have found that several of the people who have tested positive in Churchill County do not actually live here. Ernst has been able to have their positive test results moved to the community where they reside, keeping the Churchill positivity rate down and the community on the Governor’s “Green” list.
Ernst said the one person who is currently hospitalized is 60 years old. Although they are seeing younger people test positive, the younger a person is, the fewer symptoms they have. “The symptoms we’re seeing mostly are a loss of taste and smell,” she said. The COVID team is also working closely with Banner Churchill Community Hospital and NAS Fallon to include contact tracing on any positive cases from their testing.
Barbee commended Ernst and her staff for the work they have done on this issue. “Kudos to Shannon and her staff,” he said, “if they were not doing this it would significantly affect our numbers and our business capacity in the community. It takes a lot of work it’s a tough thing Shannon is doing, and they are all to be commended because this is complicated.”
Echoing his support, Commissioner Pete Olsen said keeping the positivity rate down and having accurate numbers is what keeps Churchill County open. “We want accuracy, we don’t want false numbers,” he said. “It is very important that we get as much random testing as we can – it establishes a baseline out in the community that keeps our positivity rate down and our community open.”
Ernst said she has been overwhelmed by the support from Road department staff, city facilities staff, social service, and nurses, who are all volunteering to help get through the testing as fast as possible. “Everyone who has come out to help has just been amazing,” she said, “one of our biggest goals is to have accurate testing information.”
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