Partnerships strong one year into pandemic

Reflections on the past year’s battle with COVID-19 in Butler County highlighted the weekly COVID briefing Wednesday.

Butler County Emergency Management Agency Director Robbie Myers reminded the group, “Saturday, we’ll mark one year since the Governor of Missouri and the President of the United States declared a state of emergency. It was also the day we opened our Butler County Emergency Operations Center at the Poplar Bluff Police Department.”

Both states of emergency “are still intact,” Myers said. “The emergency operations center is still open. We will continue as we go forward. It keeps evolving on what our response is and how we deal with this. We just appreciate all the various levels that have come together in the past year. They help us get through this thing. Now, I’m looking forward to those partnerships, the activities that will get us on the other side, and I want to thank the community for working together to getting us here.”

Butler County Health Department Administrator Emily Goodin talked about the services the county provides and the present COVID facts in the county.

“We have had approximately 4,302 COVID cases,” Goodin said. “Seeing our case load has declined over the past couple of weeks, which is good news, we decided to go to weekly numbers. We’ll go ahead and release those numbers on a weekly basis. We’re looking at doing that every Wednesday. We’re also going to report our active numbers, which are 47 this week.”

No new cases were reported Wednesday.

Goodin said the health center is doing rapid testing by appointment twice a week. If you need an appointment, go to the center’s website or Facebook page, and you’ll be able to schedule one there.

“We did have our national guard vaccine clinic yesterday (Tuesday),” Goodin said. “We did approximately 1,600 doses. We’re looking at the booster dose to be March 30 at the Black River Coliseum.”

Thanking the partners, Goodin said, “We really appreciate everybody coming to the table and helping out. They’ll be back to help us administer those doses again.”

“We’re urging those to get on Missouri’s navigator, which is vaccine.mo.gov, to go ahead and register now,” Goodin said. “If for some reason you can’t make it or if you are looking for a first dose, it’s good to go ahead and get registered on that vaccine navigator because once you register, it’ll show you all the local COVID vaccine clinics in the area.

“If you don’t have internet access, you can call 877-435-8411. The COVID call center will assist in getting you into that system. Along with the national guard, Butler County Health Department is also helping with regional events.”

The next tier “opens up Monday, March 15,” Goodin said. “This is going to include our essential infrastructure. That’s going to be our teachers, our daycare workers along with everybody else that we’ve been vaccinating so far.”

Myers complimented Goodin by saying “yesterday’s event was a very smooth event that went very well. Congratulations on bringing that together.”

Goodin added “there were so many different players and partners. We couldn’t have done it without the community really coming together. It’s just not me. It’s everybody who should get a good pat on the back.”

Chris Rushin of the Boys and Girls Club of Poplar Bluff said, “(Attendance is) almost right there at before COVID numbers from a year ago. Our waiting list is actually down to zero right now. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year. We’re going to continue to do what we’re doing and looking forward to finishing out the school year on a very strong note.”

Myers reminded the group that daylight saving time begins Sunday and Poplar Bluff Fire Department Battalion Chief Stacy Harmon said, “I wanted to give everybody a reminder to let all your loved ones and your coworkers know that this weekend is daylight saving time and you need to change the batteries in those smoke alarms. If they don’t have a smoke alarm in their house, send them to 300 S. Broadway and we’ll fix them up.”