Grayson County’s political and healthcare leadership participated in a coronavirus (COVID-19) briefing Thursday afternoon led by Judge-Executive Kevin Henderson.
At the briefing, Angee McCreery, with the Grayson County Health Department, said 62 coronavirus tests have been administered in Grayson County with 32 tests negative, 28 pending and of course the two previously reported positive cases.
Those two patients remain at home and are recovering.
No new positive COVID-19 tests have been received.
GC Schools out until at least May 1
Grayson County Schools Superintendent Doug Robinson spoke at the briefing and said he had a conference call with Gov. Andy Beshear on Thursday, with Beshear saying there will be no school until at least May 1.
Robinson said he and his staff were prepared for the extension and that Non-traditional Instruction (NTI) packets will soon be sent to students.
Spring Break is next week, with Robinson saying the overwhelmingly popular food delivery routes will be utilized on Monday and Thursday of next week. He noted that the district is struggling to receive its food supply, but that “our food service team is doing a wonderful job,” as the service is serving about 2,000 meals per day to Grayson County students 18-years-old and younger.
Meriwether with multiple updates
Twin Lakes Regional Medical Center CEO Wayne Meriwether said the hospital has experienced an “outpouring in the community wanting to help.”
He said Bel Brands and Future Designs Building Materials donated 95 masks to the hospital.
“Those 95 masks are critical to protect our staff,” Meriwether noted.
He said Boundary Oaks Distillery is producing hand sanitizer and hand sanitizer solution that they’ve donated to TLRMC. Fastenal and Extreme Sports have donated eye protection gear and Walmart has donated sanitizing wipes.
He said about 600 masks have been donated to the hospital by private citizens and some people have donated cash, something “we really appreciate.”
Meriwether said that at a blood drive held last week, 50 units of blood were donated, which is critical because over 7,000 blood drives have been canceled around the country.
Another blood drive will be held on April 10 at the Center on Main (K105 will have additional information on that blood drive in the coming days).
Meriwether informed the public that physicians are now utilizing “Telemed” – Instead of a face-to-face meeting with a physician, the patient and doctor communicate via cell phone or computer.
Drive-thru testing
Drive-thru COVID-19 testing began Wednesday on the Twin Lakes Regional Medical Center campus.
“But, don’t just show up and expect to be tested for COVID-19 because it’s not going to happen that way,” Meriwether stated. “If you’re experiencing a high fever or cough or having difficulty breathing, call your family physician and they will screen you over the phone … and instruct you to go to the end of the Cave-Bland Medical Complex (912 Wallace Avenue) and you’ll be met there by a nurse practitioner that will test you.
“If you don’t have a family physician, go to our website, TLRMC.com, and you can look up any physician’s phone number and call them and they will screen you over the phone and instruct you how to get tested at the drive-thru,” Meriwether added.
Test results are taking, in some cases, up to 10 or more days to receive, but Meriwether said he’s hoping that time-frame shrinks as more labs begin analyzing COVID-19 tests.
He added that TLRMC may receive “an allocation” for COVID-19 testing and staff at the hospital will be able to perform the test instead of sending the sample to a lab.
Alternate care sites
“We’ve talked about setting up alternate care sites where we can expand the number of patients we can handle at Twin Lakes,” Meriwether said. “And we have a system in place to do that, the problem is ventilators. We can handle a Covid-19 patient up to the point where they are put on a ventilator.
“We have six ventilators and we can convert some of our anesthesia machines to ventilators and we can handle a number of those,” he said. “We only have a couple of ventilators that will do what needs to be done to give COVID-19 patients their best chance at survival.”
Meriwether added that he’s conducted talks with two hospitals about converting those healthcare facilities into critical care hospitals, which will treat COVID-19 patients from other regions, including Grayson County.
“We’ve been in conversations with Hardin Memorial Hospital and Owensboro Health about setting up their hospitals as critical care hospitals, where they can take all respiratory and COVID patients and treat those.”
Hardin Memorial Hospital in Elizabethtown is a couple of weeks away from being ready to activate critical care services, but Owensboro Health is “ready to go,” Meriwether said.
Owensboro Health has 475 beds that “can gear up to 600 beds.” Additionally, they have 100 ventilators, 72 negative pressure rooms, something you want those in place to handle the COVID patients, according to Meriwether.
By Ken Howlett, News Director
Contact Ken at ken@k105.com
