Meeting Minutes July 28, 2020 SPECIAL MEETING Due to The

Meeting Minutes July 28, 2020 SPECIAL MEETING Due to the State of North Carolina’s Declaration of Emergency in response to the COVID- 19 pandemic and per NCGS § 166A-19.24, the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners conducted a remote meeting using the WebEx application. CALL TO ORDER – 2:30 PM - REMOTE MEETING The Board of Commissioners of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, met remotely for a special meeting on Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 2:30 p.m. with Chair Dunlap presiding. Present: Chair George Dunlap Commissioner Patricia "Pat" Cotham Commissioner Trevor M. Fuller Commissioner Susan Harden Commissioner Mark Jerrell Commissioner Vilma D. Leake Commissioner Susan Rodriguez-McDowell Commissioner Ella B. Scarborough Absent: Commissioner Elaine Powell PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Chair Dunlap called the meeting to order, followed by introductions and the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag 20-6303: COVID-19 Response Update Public Health Data and Testing Update Gibbie Harris, Public Health Director, provided an update on COVID-19 health data and testing. Ms. Harris said the Board would see that the indicators were showing some indication of stabilization, which was a good thing, but she wanted to remind everyone of the goal to continue to reduce the spread of COVID-19. She said as they did that, it was to prioritize getting the children back into school, making sure people were able to work in safe environments and also to reduce the deaths and disabilities. She said with those goals and priorities in mind, she also wanted to make the case that they had to expect COVID-19 to be around for a while, as it was not going anywhere anytime soon. She said their numbers were still high and restrictions were still much needed. She said the personal measures they had put in place had to continue to be reinforced and expected of the community. She said there were 19,388 positive COVID-19 cases in Mecklenburg County as of two days ago. She said there had been a small decline over the last couple of days, but the situation had been up and down, and some of that was an artifact of the system issues they had with the State system, and sometimes they had a delay in data coming in. Ms. Harris said the characteristics of the cases had not changed significantly; three- fourths were still among adults ages 20 to 59, and one in three were Hispanic, which was down a bit compared to previous weeks. She said five percent had been hospitalized and over 50 percent had been released from isolation. She said one particular piece to note was that they were starting to see an increase in the percentage of cases in those less than 20 years of age. Ms. Harris reviewed a slide of the number of lab-confirmed cases per 100,000 residents by zip code. She said the numbers had come up, but the locations and main areas affected in the community had not changed significantly. She said among the deaths, there were 194 as of the 26th and there was quite a bit of variability among deaths, but the numbers were small comparatively. She said among the deaths, 85% had been Meeting Minutes July 28, 2020 among adults greater than 60, all with underlying conditions, and more than 50% had been individuals who had been residing in a long-term care facility, and more than 50% had been non-Hispanic white, which was probably an artifact of the number of individuals in long-term care facilities with the majority being white. She showed the percent-positive rate over the last seven days and that it had decreased slightly as they were at 10.1%. She said that was still higher than they would like it to be, but it was somewhat stable. She said they were having about 3,500 test preformed per day through the health systems and CVS. She said more than almost 250,000 tests were completed in Mecklenburg County. She said the hospitalizations had stabilized a little over the past seven days, and the number was 97 for the average daily census number in the hospitals. Ms. Harris said COVID-19 testing obviously has been in the news at all levels and that in Mecklenburg County testing was widely available. She said they had some new retail and mobile sites, and Atrium and Novant continued to provide the majority of the testing although they were seeing quite a bit happening with CW Williams and they had testing through CVS Pharmacy, Walgreens Pharmacy, and Walmart at the moment. She said there were other smaller testing efforts in the community, but those were the main ones at this time. She said the testing systems had been strained with high turn-around times, which was starting to drop. She said currently they were seeing three to five days for turn around on testing with some of them being even less than that, recognizing the fact it would take an additional day for those tests to get into the state system that provides them with those tests results. She said they continued to see a lack of a national strategy for coordinating testing resources and capacity. She said she knew there was more capacity at least through one of their hospitals, if not both and in the community as well, but the testing resources were a challenge for them. She said this was something they continued to work with the State on for additional capacity, and that particular effort with the State was really focused on those zip codes with the highest priority populations. She said they were waiting to hear from the State on an RFP [inaudible] recently to get more testing in Mecklenburg County. Ms. Harris said in an attempt to get more testing out there, the Health Department would hold another testing event in the coming weekend at the Valarie C. Woodard Center. She said the people they would be focused on would have symptoms of infection or had a close contact with someone who was COVID-19, had a high risk due to age or other health conditions or work environment, or recently attended mass gatherings or protests. Ms. Harris said in terms of case investigation and contact tracing, the Health Department had been operating seven days a week with case investigations, contact tracing, employer notification, data entry, long-term care facility outbreak management, and managing the COVID-19 hotline. She said they had about 160 staff who were doing a combination of case investigation and contact tracing and 15 data entry and other support staff who worked seven days a week. She said they were continuing to recruit other staff as needed, and some of the case investigators were school nurses, and she knew their time was limited as they moved into the school years. She said they were accommodating that with additional staff that they were training currently, and they were providing routine feedback and recommendations to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services regarding protocols and processes. She said what they were finding was that they were looking to the County as did CDC to be somewhat of a subject-matter expert in these areas and they were pulling on Mecklenburg County’s protocols and developing those to work for the rest of the State. She said the CDC was doing some of that with what they learned from when they were on the ground with them. She said they do find the effectiveness of the contract tracing was greatly impacted by long turn-around times for test results. She said if you were not getting test results for over five days, trying to contact someone to let them know they had been exposed and needed to isolate becomes less effective. She said they were continuing to work with the systems which were testing, as well as the laboratories to try to keep that turn-around time as low as possible. Ms. Harris said their support for long-term care facilities included outreach to all of them, providing guidance and assistance and also for those who were experiencing outbreaks, they provide initial guidance on infection control and help coordinate testing and PPE for them with regular follow up until the outbreak ends. She said they help determine at what point the outbreak was able to end. She said the North Carolina Department of Health Meeting Minutes July 28, 2020 and Human Services was conducting base-line testing of all staff and residents of long- term care facilities throughout the State. She said what that meant was they were choosing 10 to 12 sites a week, not all in Mecklenburg County, to do full screenings. She said to date she believes five sites had been done in Mecklenburg County and that there was no intent to go back and test again at this point as it was just a baseline. She said there were recommendations for all staff in long-term care facilities to be tested on a regular basis once a week, and they were working with sites to do as much of that as possible but also they needed to understand the constraints of testing in Mecklenburg County and the ability of some of these sites to make that happen. Ms. Harris said more facilities in outbreak status would be seen as they continued to do routine testing and continued to do community spread. She reviewed the known causes of COVID-19 transmitted: individual interactions without face coverings; occupational exposure; congregate living sites; private gatherings through parties and private residences and in residences; public gatherings at restaurants, bars, and public settings; churches and travel to hotspots.

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