Local health agencies preparing for coronavirus

Gov. Mike Parson speaks during a news conference in St. Louis after a woman who recently traveled to Italy became Missouri's first confirmed coronavirus case.

AP photo

There are no cases of coronavirus in either Butler or Ripley County as of Monday afternoon — but local health agencies are still preparing for the arrival of the virus.

“The main thing is for us to all be cautious but not to be over-cautious,” Jan Morrow, the administrator of the Ripley County Public Health Center, said. “I think we can all practice better health.”

One way Morrow said people can practice good health is to wash one’s hands well, using soap and warm water — a fact that Emily Galloway, the program director of the Butler County Health Department, concurs with.

“You want to clean your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, or you can use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains 60 to 95 percent alcohol,” Galloway said. “Of course, you want to use soap and water if your hands are visibly dirty.”

However, Morrow does not believe people should excessively rely on sanitizers in lieu of hand-washing.

“(Sanitizer is) less effective is what we’ve been told in our environmental training,” Morrow said. “Nothing beats good soap and good warm water. Sanitizers are to be used when you’re traveling and don’t have access to good soap and water.”

Another local health agency preparing for coronavirus — also known as COVID-19 — is Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center

“We are taking proactive steps to prepare for the protection of patients, our caregivers and the community, and monitoring ongoing COVID-19 updates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),” Lacey McClintock, director of marketing and community relations for PBRMC, said. “We are using the screening guidelines for symptoms and risk factors and have a response plan to protect patients and our staff should it be needed.”

McClintock said that if a physician determines a patient meets the risk criteria, that physician will coordinate testing and the patient’s ultimate disposition, coordinating with the department of health, as necessary.

Both Butler and Ripley County health departments have test kits for diagnosing coronavirus. The symptoms of coronavirus include fever, cough and shortness of breath.

“We have limited kits right now that are being distributed through the state,” Morrow said. “The CDC has been shipping them out and Mercy Hospital had a kit there. … What they did is treat (a patient) presumptively because she had all the symptoms and because of where she’d been. The kits are probably in every county in Missouri, but the kits are limited right now.”

Galloway said that kits are limited because local agencies have supplies needed for coronavirus on hand.

“Currently, in order to be tested, you have to meet the definition of a person under investigation (for coronavirus),” Galloway said. “If testing does occur, we collect a nasal-pharyngeal swab and an oral-pharyngeal swab, then a sputum culture if a patient has a productive cough. Typically, the turnaround time on the test is one to two days with the Missouri state public health labs. With a private lab, it could be two to four days.”

If someone tests positive for coronavirus in Ripley County, Morrow said they would be informed of it.

“We would be notified at the local health department and we would start investigating the family to see who they’d been in contact with,” Morrow said. “We’d fill out a disease report to see who had been in contact with them. The family would be notified, usually by the doctor. If we needed, the state (health) department would come in and help.”