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Health officials, Gov. Ricketts provide update on 1st Nebraska patient with COVID-19 Share Shares Copy Link Copy

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morning. Toronto shrank. Stay here. Okay, well, good morning, everybody. We are here today to give you an update on what? We are a Corona virus. We have some new information based upon the patient that we discussed yesterday. Patient one. We know, for example, that she went to a basketball game at Fremont Y M c A. Last Saturday. She may have been there all day, so we certainly want people to think about monitoring their health. If they were that basketball game. Shells went to a B m w dinner Wednesday night before she went anniversary on Thursday. Still tracking the information down on that with me here today, I've got Dr Gary Antone, who's our chief medical officer for the state. Nebraska. Dr. Thompson. Frantic hopes are who is the? That's a genealogist from the state. Nebraska. Then Dr Adi Poor who's gonna spend most of time talking about what does counties doing? She's in charge of Douglas County health. I want to emphasize again everybody. Well, people take this seriously that if you're sick, stay home. We don't want you to exposing our people. We want you to make sure you wash your hands frequently for 20 seconds. Do the elbow bump, right. We want to make sure always do that. Oh, we want to make sure that again. You're wiping out surfaces. Cough into your your elbow or tissue Throw away. These are common sense hygiene things that we want everybody. So also be prepared for asking employers to be prepared. Your people may not be able to come to work, so plan for that family should be there. Have a couple of weeks of food at home. You think about this like a snowstorm might be stuck at home for a while. So I have a couple of weeks of food at home. Think about it. A school gets shut down and then you gotta provide child care. So people should be thinking about what they're gonna do with regard to that. That case happens so people should be planning ahead for apparent for some of these things to happen and make sure they're ready to be able to respond to it. So again, businesses and families prepared. We also want employers to really help us out. If somebody shows up to your company who is sick, send him home. Okay. We want to get really wanna emphasize. He's kind of common sense hiding things with that. We'll go ahead and turn over to Dr Gary Anto when I'm sorry. We also mayor for obviously sorry. Thank you, Governor. Our public health departments are extremely valued partners. Our Department of Health and Human Service is has a long standing relationship with our local public health departments, specifically Douglas County and started CASS County directors who are with us today. We'll introduce in second. We've all been in a preparedness mode for the last several weeks beginning of January of this year, we've held numerous calls, numerous meetings, contacts and had spent great working together. We recognize yesterday that we had our first potential case. We took immediate action and ensuring the health of all our Nebraska citizens is our main priority. Members of our state team are epidemiology Team have joined Dr Adi Pours Team here in Douglas County work on contact investigations as faras This patient is concerned so we're just providing support and assistance is needed And obviously these actions are meant to help keep us safe. We are so lucky to have Dr Adi pores are Douglas coming public health Director she'll have some comments here to go over with you. And with that, I'll turn it over to Dr Poor. Thank you, Doctor. Before I start, I just want to share with everybody in the community how thankful I am to have to support from the mayor that we have had several discussions. I didn't think I needed to see you s so soon because we just talked about this. How does this community need to be prepared? My appreciation to the governor who is here today to we really take serious. And we want to do the best and be the healthiest state. But as yours, I have heard today we have joined 2027 other states in the nation who have Corona virus all together, 333 cases in the United States. And unfortunately, 17 death at this time. But so you help the announcement from the governor yesterday about the one case, our first case in Nebraska, which is a 36 year old female who actually returned to our area from England on February 27. She is into bio containment unit at Nebraska Medicine right now. And as I can share with you. We checked on her status and she's stable at this time. So our our efforts started right after we heard about this news yesterday afternoon and our epidemiologist in the state support that we have two people here that are from CDC. We worked together. So how does this really look? Like I want to share with you that the first thing we always do in these cases are really get a clear history off the individual. Where have they been since they returned on 27 until the axe idiot I went to a Methodist hospital is you have heard yesterday and then were diagnosed with covert 19. That history is really important because what you what we learned from the history is where has this person been? How long has she been there? And then what we are looking at What are high risk places that potentially could identify individuals that were in close contact for long periods of time? So that has occurred yesterday. What we realized yesterday evening Well, that the highways group in this case, the healthcare bra course. So we make contacts with all those emergency rooms that she visited and she visited several of ones and not recognizing that she or she came from England but in a London wasn't on the list off. Any concern in her medical concerns will not related to respiratory symptoms, but two other symptoms. Actually, healthcare providers at those sites did not rare protective equipment. And so last night we made contact with all those health care assistants. Day developed lists immediately off the individuals who had contact with her. Our recommendation and this is what CD sees recommendation is that health care providers who were in close contact with this individual since she returned from England actually needed to self quarantine themselves for 14 days, starting when they had contact with the individual that started last night. And Askew can't even bear to. Not everybody has the opportunity to self quarantine. So we actually have one individual now who is at the quarantine unit at Nebraska Medicine. Because the conditions at home she had some elderly individuals in her home, it did not feel right for her to quarantine at home. So in this unusual circumstance, we have everything for that Nebraska. A quarantine unit was able to receive this so as this investigation goes forward, we will identify more sites and you have heard some of the sights from the governor we built today work through the whole weekend to try to see who do we need to or who do we need to contact and what information do we need to provide those individuals at this time? I just want to make sure that we understand there are really two goals. One goal is to contain this as long as possible. So we do not have community spread and all of us can go on with our regular life. That's why these measures at this time, I really need to be taken serious. The second goal in my mind is that we need to protect individuals who are at high risk for Corona virus, and those individuals really need to take special measures even more into consideration. And who are those high risk individuals? Those will be the elderly and those with underlying health condition, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, respiratory disease and individuals who are immuno compromised. As you have heard today, probably when you listen to the news. The general recommendation across the nation is now that if you really are high risk into a If you do not feel well, you do not go out in large gatherings. That is number one. And to actually be true all the time for everyone. Second ofall, even if you are well, you may want to reconsider being unlocked in large gatherings. Those would be the messages said I would give Besides all the messages that we need to change our behavior now, I think all of us look around. We never should walk into a conference or into a place, and somebody wants to shake your Oh, somebody wants to talk you. That shouldn't happen at this time, so we really need to reinforce it. We talk about social distancing six feet from each other and that I think all important mansions that we should need to take. I think if we take this by heart, they can start to prolong this. You know it's going to be in the community. There is no question about, but the longer we can wait, the better we can prepare and the better our hospital systems can prepare for it. And with that, I would like to turn it over to talk to Tom's, a friend he may have some comments in regards to some of the state developments. Thank you. Thank you very much. Doctor Pork. I want to underscore the message that Dr Poor communicated and assure people that for 20 years we've been building out a network of public health infrastructure with epidemiologists at the state level and at the local health department level. We practiced on this kind of thing with a variety of other diseases, like measles. Like protested. It's like foodborne outbreaks. Many of you have covered those stories over the years. And so this is, uh it's not our first rodeo. And we have a trained Condrey of individuals who are able to conduct the kind of investigations, the interviews and make appropriate recommendations to individuals who were involved in this outbreak. We've been We've been thrown a very challenging situation with this first case that's been reported here in Nebraska, and the challenges that that individual his mixed in a lot of social circumstances where there's a challenge of identifying everybody has been exposed, we have a plan. We're working closely with all of the affected parties in Douglas County in in the the Three Rivers Health Department too. Identify those individuals and see to it that they're properly quarantined, tested, isolated and to assure that the spread is minimized. It would be a great story if we could contain this, and that's our goal. It's a hard thing to promise because of the challenge of this virus. One of the challenges is the the acquisition or the infection. Before people develop symptoms and we're working real hard toe warn people they may have been exposing may be affected. And if that was a high risk exposure, we're asking them to quarantine. It's important for everyone to understand the difference between quarantine and isolation. Quarantine. We're trying to move people who've been exposed into a setting where we wait out the incubation period to be sure they're not gonna develop infection. We call it self quarantine isolations, individuals, anybody who developed symptoms, who's been in a high risk setting. We asked him to immediately self isolate, which means you're symptomatic. You may be infected, moved to an isolated place and consult with the health care provider or public health department about whether your symptoms and you're epidemiologic History warrant laboratory testing. We've been thrown a real challenging situation But there's some good news about this. This situation were able to recognize how this virus was introduced to our community. Many situations around the country, you take Seattle, you take Northern California, a person pops up and you have no idea how that person acquired it. We're lucky in this case that we know where this person came from, and we can carefully track that individuals trajectory and immediately move in time toe interview Those individuals quarantined, isolate and lab test when necessary. The other great advantage we have at this point in time and underscored Doctor Port said. We're tryingto push the arrival, and the spread of this virus is far in. Time is possible because, as we do so, our preparedness efforts are going to allow us to deal better with it. We've arrived at a point where we're able Thio provide laboratory testing, which, if this were two weeks ago, we have a really stress point. We have our public health lab that could do upto 100 specimens a date. We have the regional pathology lamp here in Omaha that could do approximately that amount in the wonderful news is that over the weekend, beginning next week. We have major corporate providers lab Corrine Quest that are ready to go public and offer testing so that providers who find a patient that they think warrants testing they can order that through the commercial laboratory system. Laboratory testing is very, very valuable because we can differentiate people who are carrying the virus from those that aren't. And if you're carrying the virus, we know we have toe. Look at who you might have exposed, and we know we have to isolate you for the for the appropriate carriage period, which is approximately 14 days. So we're doing our best. We have a great Kadre people. They're working hard. Success isn't guaranteed here. What we're certainly trying to do is mitigate this and suppress it as much as possible, delay its spread and continue importantly, the preparedness efforts with our healthcare partners. We're very thankful for all of the health care systems in the metropolitan area and across the state. All of them have gotten the message. All of them are redoing business and having emergency preparedness meetings. This is absolutely critical. We don't have a vaccine. We don't think we have a good medicine. There's some experiments out there. The one thing we could provide for that 5 10 15% of the people who get infected and need it is good health care, support, hospital systems, intensive care and ventilators. And this can pull people through. And we want to assure that if that situation arises, we have all of that infrastructure available all of the health care support so that we can pull people through. And we know looking around the world that we're gonna have sick patients like the one we have right now over the biocontainment. So with that, delighted to take questions that turned overto anyone opening up to the media. I had a question as faras what patients need to do and you touched on this. But we've gotten calls. People say they don't know where to get their care from. So are they supposed to come here? Do they go to the E. R? You have people saying that they've been getting kind of mixed answers about that. You know, we really have to rely on health care providers, and they ought to put a phone call in and discuss their situation and health care providers. I have two acronyms that I'd really love to get Get out one. A. CDC and M P I. If you do a search on ad on the Internet, CDC and NP I, you'll find non pharmaceutical interventions. And that's the thing that the governor and Dr Poor so adequately and eloquently elaborated. But we need to immerse ourselves and understand a practice. The non pharmaceutical interventions, the other one in your occasion. Your question makes me think of this is anachronism for the medical community. It's called CDC and Coca, as in Coca Cola. There's a wonderful webinar one hour discussion that just came out on Thursday, where the CDC tried to provide all the information the medical community would need. Toe manage these kind of calls and these kind of persons when they present to their office. So we're strongly recommending that the medical community and they've done a good job. I think the medical community is highly tuned into this, and they're gonna start seeing because they're gonna get phone calls from their patients. But the vast majority they should be routed through a a health care system when they screen them. If they say I got a real problem here they have a pipeline local health departments, state health department, where they work. So we do. We do have an information line, and we had the information line open. Unfortunately, it's open from 8 32 4 every day at four for 4 3400 That is an information line that individuals in our community can use also over the weekend because this is we can weigh are not open. But I want to provide this opportunity. There is 211 and we have now worked with them and gotten agreement that they would also take Klaus. I'd like Dr Surprise that part. We still have to make sure we get that all worked out. That will be as doctors A fine except this. These are really discussion with your health care provider. What you don't want to do is at this time until sites have been established just to go to an emergency and really, you know, think about the symptoms are specific. And we helped today again in a study that about 90% of the individuals have a fever. So you just have a coffin to sniffle. But you don't have a fever. You really need to talk to your healthcare provider before you're going to an emergency room. So I would really like to discourage individuals from doing that because otherwise we are overloading emergency rooms unnecessary. And those who really need assistance and help are now going to be able to get. This woman has come in contact with lots of people. You're not sure who or how many to the general public field safe and confident moving around the area at this time, we do not see any community spread. So I would say you take your usual precautions as we have handed out and you should be safe for everyone to be in the community you mentioned to present should be the masked ball game in the V. F W. I assume the V F W was a three minute walk or was that work? What's he had Dublin club? Wasn't there a lot of blood? You know, this is all what we are gonna be rocking on this afternoon. And the moment we have new information and better information, we will share it with you so that you have a job. You know where she works or, uh, no, I don't think we know that there are a lot of the individual couldn't give us any answers. So the history we have from her is from her father, so that makes it a little bit more difficult to it. You know, it's a lot of information that we are collecting white. Now it's we speak. Do you know how many health care place some health care sites visited? How many people that might involve? Yes, there are five potential visits she made to three different sites and it involved for but determined last night. And we don't have accurate numbers. It around 30 health care providers, the all in one whole system. No, no. Well, those people be tested along with being so you know, those people will be self quarantined and they will only be tested when they come down with symptoms. For my brother Young, did she have any other underlying medical conditions? She has multiple underlying illnesses that cannot, but we described her as being stable condition. Yesterday we were told she was seriously seriously ill in stable condition. Yes, Yes, we do. She actually left by herself, but she has family in town And spend a lot of time with the family going back and forth. If I could just make one statement, I didn't get a mention. This when I introduced Dr Poor is that since at least for the last four or five weeks, Dr Poor and the other local help public health departments have been actively monitoring numerous patients that were in the high risk category and that this patient is Dr Poor mentioned did not fit that description. But we're very, very a student picking that up and getting her tested quickly. So you lost before I got the word on the simple walk make things more difficult for you to get the word out. While it does, it always makes us more. I think that's the protection we all I want for ourselves. So it's only but yes, sometimes you wish you could say more. Dr Porter, you tell us more about what she was presenting with that did not seem to point to this. She actually on the basketball game that she wasin free month. She thought she had a concussion, and that's why she went to the zero. That's quite a difference from before the virus. You know what It's like because she played basketball. So she was playing in that game and she fell. Hit her head, You know, we're getting We have tips that this person may be special needs. Is that true? You know, those are required. Said I think I would. So she and leave him. Was she making at all? No way. We don't have any contact whatsoever just to knock down another rumor. You tried that she was living in a group home conserving count. We could be an obvious problem. Yes, not to our knowledge. And she lives with her? No. She lives in an apartment. She has her own apartment, but her father and her family, she goes and visits back and forth. Quite court? Yes, Yes. Are they going to be self quarantine themselves? Self quarantine and potentially testing to fall. Did you notify anyone in the apartment complex where she's been All right? I know. Not yet. Is that all that take place has the father showing symptoms and the father is showing sentences. So we're also not to change gears here. But we also got a tip this morning that O P s had a possible low. Um Coben 19 Exposure at Mars Middle School is that can we have? I would like to interview Sarah Schram. Okay. She is healthy, wrecked off Salvi, CASS, and she can talk. Okay. Thanks, Doctor. Pork. We did have another individual that we assessed to see what their risk would be for Kobe 19. And we did have a Sarpy County resident that that that profile And however, at this time for confirmation testing to be completed on that individual. So out of an extreme abundance of caution, we did decide to start the contact investigation process. And in that process, we did identify that there were a very small number of individuals that came in contact with this person at Mars Magnet Middle School. Those individuals have been contacted by public health. They're following our recommendations as we're waiting that test to come back. And, like, it's a small number less than 10 0 yes. Weightless. That individual of any contact with a 36 year old woman? No. These cases are by no means connected at all. This individual was also a traveler. Andi, like I mentioned, we are, She fit that profile. And so we're waiting a compliment. confirmation test results. You must miss it himself. Told you? Um sti five. Thank you. We're going to take that Children's hospitals and longer second visitors because of possible explode her there. Anyone? I have not heard that information now. Well, what would you do that help these people's concerns? I heard people say that the media has happened is up for ratings that more people die from the flu in there. Um, is it a big deal? What would you say to people that are saying, given excuses like that when they hear you talk about rubbing elbows, everything. Well, I think that we want people to take it seriously. What Dr Poor was talking about was this idea of social distancing, which means keeping your distance from people. Look at what we're trying to do is mitigate the spread of the virus. So that's why we want people to pump the elbows or six day home, wash your hands for 20 seconds, coffin tear, no elbow or into a tissue and throw the tissue away. These are common sense things that we want people to practice. And this is really gonna make a big difference in how the virus spreads, it actually matters. So that's why we want people to take this seriously. And a doctor pours point. We've got a great team here. We know with our patient one. We're doing the investigation right now, but we know where we can trace that. Back to where she got it. She got it. UK brought it here. So we're tracking all this down right now and doing the investigation so people can feel comfortable. We've got a great team who are doing the investigation and contacting people's appropriate so that they could be monitoring their situations or self quarantine is striking. So but I don't think the big message for everybody again we want to keep this off talking about is we want people to do that proper hygiene, washing hands, doing the elbow bump and want people to be prepared. So think about this again. You might be a home for a couple of weeks, so make sure you got food at home. Fill your prescription medicines, think about child care if your school is closed out. Those sorts of things that happen to say during a snowstorm, that's what we want people to do right now. is far is preparing there. I want to stay. Also, I think it's important to reassure our citizens in Omaha and across Nebraska to there is a huge emotional impact of our citizen as we learn more about this virus that there's a lot of unknown still out there. I would like to say that I don't think there is a better place in the entire country in Omaha, Nebraska, because of the trained of medical professionals we have here the expertise, the facilities that we have here, the training that they have already had, especially when the Ebola virus patients came several years ago. So I really want to assure people that we will take care of them, that that we understand what's going on you. Sometimes some of these recommendations are basically the advice of the moment as we find out more and more that it's happening. We certainly will follow all recommendations of the CDC. I had a long conversation with Dr Gold just this morning. He just found the Met centre. He just got back from Washington, D. C. Just yesterday. So as this evolves and we learn more and more, we will continue to offer recommendations and advice. But I think it's important to reassure people, too. You know that this is a virus. It's it's a virus like the flu. It's it's, you know, it's so far of what we know. It could be worse than the flu, but right now there's a lot that is unknown. But it is still a virus. There's no vaccine yet. Like it was said. The med center is developing and doing clinical trials right now for an antiviral drug, so there's a lot that is unknown. But still there is a lot that is being done with the expertise sits here in Omaha. Another thing I wanted to mention is ice. I signed an executive order yesterday on pandemics, and I sent a letter to all city departments, which I'll do a press release this afternoon to give you all the specifics what I wanted from each department. But I want to let you know that every city department is prepared so that city government in Omaha can't continue. You know, we do have the network capacity, for example, for every city employees to work from home remotely. Our first responders are trained like no others. I think the Omaha Police Department are paramedics in our fire department. They wrote the book on the manual on transporting patients. Keep in mind, it was the Omaha Fire department that transported this patient. And they do have the expertise from what they learned with the Ebola patients, too. And they know what they're doing. So I really want to reassure people, too. The emotions that I think everybody has when we learn more about this is great right now. And and I think the important messages with people that we have within the state that you've heard from today Dr Poor with Douglas County Health Department of Public Safety Public health is first and foremost as we continue to learn more about this and make recommendations for our citizens. But I think they could rest Assure that that that we will keep them informed and their safety is first and foremost for all of us. Here is the information continues to circulate. Have any concerns people begin to wonder. Are is open for business. I think every city in the in the United States and in the world is right now a CZ. We learn more about the disease and Maura about it spread, and Maura, about how we control it and more if we have medications to treat it. I think everybody is concerned about that, but way have to take it seriously. But I do think of one case being diagnosed does not mean that the entire city will be shutting down. I think we will use best practices. We will listen to what the CDC says. We will follow the recommendations, and I think, as many said this morning already, we just have to be smart about it. But you know all of those things that we do when we're sick any time. Right now, it's all non pharmaceutical interventions. So against you stay at home. You can take Tylenol for the fever. Whatever you do for a regular virus that you have, we still have to use those types of techniques right now. So I would advise people make recommendations that if you don't feel good, you stay home right now, not going public places. But I think still that that emotional or that fear, we want to really reassure people because there are people that are working on this not stopped 24 7 right now, I had a question about clarification for the testing. I know you guys said you don't want to flood ers with people going just because they have an issue but came further clear. Five. How is the testing being done? And for people who are just kind of concerned? I mean, do they just go to their doctor and we have enough tests at this point? The last question is Aziz the easiest one to answer. We have enough tests at this time, okay? And as you just heard about the commercial testing that's going to become available over the weekend, that actually showed a sure all of us now in regards to testing so far, it always has been the health care provider. So a discussion that the health care provider, that's where the in public health, that's where the the station will be made sometimes when the health care provider is not sure, should be test this individual he most likely caused public health to see what other recommendations does this make sense to have this test. So I said, answer yet I think disinfect like the hospitals that she's been at, where she went in and not only to talk people that touched things. You know what we know? And actually, this is a good news story. Actually, this virus is very can effectively be clean with regular this infected, there's a virus Stay on certain surfaces longer, or is it easier to catch a certain service is a flawed person metal Lots of studies that are being done because that question comes up all the time and how long and so on. So at this time, the span can be two hours if you talk to bomb Carlson up to a day or two. But in general, what we know from the Corona virus family, the whole family, all the cold viruses that we all again, we know that these viruses do not survive. They they have a soft shell, so to say, and therefore are really responding to that sect. Take one more question, governor. From the state perspective here, the prisons are overcrowded. That's got to be a real concern. Prisons also state run health facilities. What is the state doing to protect both the guards and the prisoners in this situation? So we're going through our own continuity planning. We've already had continuity plans put in place. And my staff is working too. Worked through all those continuity plans. So, for example, the Department of Corrections, they're taking steps. Same thing at the State Patrol Department. Health Service's. We're all going through that continuity. Planning to be able to make sure that we continue to provide those service is even if people are starting to stay home because, you know, they're getting sick. So we are doing that plane right now. We'll be able, continue, provide them. Service is. And there's nothing that we could do that you could do legally to make people stay at home, right? I mean, you can ask themself warming, but legally you cannot pulling against our will, right? Well, where I think everybody's gonna know where Nebraska people into the right thing. They gonna know that if they're asking to be quarantined, they need to be able to stay at home to make sure we're putting our people at risk. Can folks, thank you very much for coming here this morning. We really appreciate will continue to keep you updated as we have more information. And again, you've got a great team here. That is working together it from the state city, county. Everybody's working together to be able to make sure we keep brass himself next you think?