PORT ANGELES – Clallam Health Officer Dr. Unthank held another briefing Wednesday morning that covered a lot of ground.
First, the numbers. No new cases reported out of 957 tests. Still 14 positives and 11 of those patients have fully recovered.
Unthank reports the Recovery Shelter out by the airport is now up and running. It’s designed to host anyone who tests positive for the virus and needs a place to isolate, but there is no one in the shelter at this time.
Unthank says 20 volunteers have been trained to assist the Health Department with contact tracing, but the team needs 20 more.
Unthank believes that starting May 4, some relaxing of the restrictions could begin in terms of getting people back to work.
“So that will probably include things like our outdoor trades, things like construction, and then every couple weeks, we’ll see how we’re doing. See if cases have spiked and then go to release further and further from there.”
She reminded us that employers should never encourage people to work when they’re feeling even mildly sick.
“I can tell you that during our contact tracing we had multiple folks who had COVID-19 who felt pressured to go to work. Even when they were sick. That’s an incredibly dangerous thing and we really need folks to be able to stay home when they’re sick and to feel like they are supported in doing that.”
Unthank talked about the antibody testing that is happening in some communities around the country and the reports of high percentages of their populations appearing to have had the virus unknowingly.
“Antibody tests that are available right now are really not that great. They test positive if you’ve ever had any of the coronaviruses, including the whole family which includes a virus that causes the common cold. So if you see reports that, you know, we tested a county and shocking amounts of people tested positive, that’s probably because a large amount of those people have had a cold in the past. But we don’t think that all of those people had COVID-19.”
Finally, Unthank said there has been a big spike in calls to the Poison Center as people at home are getting more conscious about cleaning.
“I always had a lot of calls to the Washington Poison Center because people were mixing various cleaners to try to make them stronger, which actually can release toxic gases. So please don’t do that. Please don’t mix cleaners at home. We’ve also had reports of people trying to clean their food with things like bleach. That is very, very dangerous. Bleach should not be eaten. And then, a quick touch-base about taking care of children, remembering that alcohol-based hand sanitizer has a very high proportion of alcohol, and children take their hands and put them in their mouths. And so we have had poisonings of children based on a use of alcohol-based hand sanitizer with kids. Soap and water works great. Do that and we will be just fine.”