After two months, daily coronavirus meetings scaled back

It was precisely two months ago that area officials started meeting daily at the Poplar Bluff Police Department to discuss COVID-19 management.

As of Monday, Butler County has held at 26 cases for two weeks, with one current test undergoing further investigation.

At the same time, those daily meetings have been eased back to three times per week.

Similarly, Missouri Governor Mike Parson announced 74 new statewide cases Monday following the weekend, the lowest daily count since mid-March, with 9,918 cases statewide, including 488 deaths.

The Butler County Health Department began RAPID testing Monday and performed about 12 tests, BCHD administrator Emily Goodin said.

The health department has received about 70 tests and can perform a test about every 30 minutes, with results available about 15 minutes after each test.

Monday’s testing leaves about 60 tests still available before the machine used to process the results is shared with Dunklin County for the following week.

“Today was day one, and it was a success,” Goodin said.

After asking the community to make and donate cloth masks, Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center has included 500 cloth masks into circulation.

“We issue those to the persons when they present either a patient or visitor and then after they deposit those in the depositories on departure (and are laundered daily),” said Johnna Craft, PBRMC director of risk management and facilities compliance officer.

Poplar Bluff Boys & Girls Club CEO Chris Rushin announced that along with Poplar Bluff R-1 School District and Chartwells, they had distributed 269,246 meals to area kids.

The Poplar Bluff Municipal Library will begin receiving book dropoffs at its outdoor dropoff location starting Tuesday.