Summer Lake Residents Asked To Take Precaution
Playgrounds closed during pandemic
April 9, 2020 at 12:24 a.m.
Summer Lake Residents Asked To Take Precaution
By David [email protected]
“Our summer residents, we appreciate you, you bring a lot to our community in a lot of ways, but if they’re coming from a hotspot, we really encourage them to do the 14-day quarantine period. Just to keep this area as minimal as possible as far as infections,” he said during the weekly press conference Wednesday from City Hall.
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer said the city and county having put a lot of guidance in place before the coronavirus confirmed cases started growing “is going to be helpful.”
Jackson, Thallemer, Kosciusko County Health Department Public Health Officer Dr. William Remington and Kosciusko County Sheriff Kyle Dukes took part in Wednesday’s press conference on COVID-19, how the two government entities are handling the pandemic and Gov. Eric Holcomb’s executive orders extending the stay-at-home order until April 20.
Thallemer said Holcomb’s Executive Order 20-18 took effect Tuesday and that the city and county are following the leadership of Holcomb and President Donald Trump, and that’s important.
Jackson agreed, saying, “The city and the county work very well together all the time; especially now, it’s extra important. Our stance with the county is, we’re following what the governor set forth. We’re trying not to run ahead of him, but he has a lot of people there at the state that are working full-time, checking data and trying to make the best decisions, so it doesn’t make sense to try and reinvent the wheel.”
He said because Holcomb has to, the governor is making a “one-size-fits-all type of band-aid for the whole state,” so that if it’s adequate for larger population areas, then it should be on the side of caution for areas like Kosciusko County. Jackson said he feels good the county is staying in line with Holcomb.
Thallemer said essential travel is an issue he hears every day from people who have concerns about it, including going out shopping.
“I’m hearing many different sides of this thing and understand that it’s not an easy issue,” he said. “I know the governor did ask specifically in his executive order to limit the number of household members who travel to and enter stores for the purpose of making purchases. That’s just one of those common-sense things.”
Thallemer said he didn’t think there was any store here that has restricted so many people from coming in per family, although one store is limiting shoppers to those who are 16 years of age and older. Another store he talked to is going to limit one shopper per household beginning next week.
“I think it’s more of an idea for folks to understand, don’t pile family in the car to get out for an outing to go to the store. It’s not only endangering our other citizens, but it’s endangering the workforce who’s a little bit skittish now working in areas where people are coming in,” Thallemer said.
He said he went out Monday to the large stores and home improvement stores and talked to their managers to find out how they were going to handle the executive order that went into effect Tuesday. He also received two calls Wednesday morning.
There are three stores in the Warsaw community “taking the lead.” Walmart is only allowing one entrance in and out and reducing the number of shoppers in the store at one time from 5,500 to 1,000. Owen’s corporate decided to limit the number of shoppers to half their capacity, while Aldi’s is setting a limit on the number of people inside their stores. The corporate offices of Meijer and Lowe’s are in discussion of what they’re going to do, Thallemer said.
“I did talk to one store, and I won’t mention a name because I’m not sure they have or will enact it, but there was discussion about doing temperature scans on customers before they go in. I don’t know that that’s been implemented. We’ll wait and see on that one,” Thallemer said.
Holcomb’s order prohibits any playground from being open, Thallemer said, acknowledging the police tape around swingsets and such.
“It’s hard for me as a mayor to take those wonderful amenities we’ve got (away). The weather is getting nice, we need that exercise, but following the state and federal guidelines, those are places where contamination can occur, does occur, will occur if we leave those areas open,” Thallemer said.
There are open areas in the park so people can take strolls or walk their pets while practicing safe distances.
Signs have been posted in the parks about the playgrounds, and the mayor said the city has taken calls both ways complaining about the closing of recreational sites.
The Pike Lake campground is very popular every summer in Warsaw. Holcomb’s order now restricts campgrounds around the state.
“Campgrounds are essentially closed, unless you’re in an RV or a cabin, and that comes directly from the state order, and you don’t have a permanent residence,” Thallemer said.
An example would be someone who takes their RV to Florida and comes back to Warsaw in the summer.
“We actually have three such cases out at our campground. We have notified all the rest of the campground campers, with the exception of those three people who are in an RV and have no residence, per the directive from the governor. We are having them sign affidavits that that is indeed true,” Thallemer said.
There are a number of “great things” going on in the community during the pandemic, Thallemer wanted people to understand.
“This community, like many other communities, is coming together,” he said, mentioning United Way’s Darren Bickel as one person taking the lead to put together a weekly meeting of people involved in food, housing and other issues. The core group helps manage resources with all the players in the community, Thallemer said.
He said the school corporations are doing a “marvelous” job of getting meals out to the kids. “I just can’t thank all the volunteers and employees at the schools, under the direction of the superintendents, to get the food out,” Thallemer said. “I know they’re dropping off, delivering, they’re doing everything they can. They’re literally getting thousands of meals out since all of this started and they’re continuing to do that.”
Lastly, he thanked the foundations and others for their generosity in trying to support the missions of all the local nonprofits that are trying to navigate the crisis.
“There’s just too many to list and they all need help,” Thallemer said.
After announcing Kosciusko County has had its first COVID-19 death – a 70-year-old man being treated at Kosciusko Community Hospital for the coronavirus – and that the county case count is up to 16 since March 26, Remington spoke about whether or not people should wear masks.
“Masking, yes! If you are in public, and need to step into an environment where it would be very difficult to, or uncertain as to your ability to be successful with social distancing, then you should wear a non-medical mask. A simple scarf will do,” Remington said.
In most medical environments, he believes there is an universal medical-grade masking protocol at this point.
“This is going to be a while yet,” Remington said, noting that if this was a nine-inning ball game, it might be the third or fourth inning.
“But I want to emphasize the next two to three weeks will likely be where we see the apex of the surge, the top of the mountain, if you will,” Remington said. “Don’t let those official case counts that seem so low – 14, 15, 16 cases – fool you. It underrepresents the issue, as our unfortunate announcement this morning of the first death. To be sure, our healthcare facilities on the frontline are seeing this thoroughly. The next two weeks will be particularly heavy for them.”
He encouraged anyone making masks to make plenty of them. Thallemer said Parkview Hospital, the health department and Salvation Army are three places accepting donations of face masks.
While patients have certainly recovered from COVID-19, Remington said he didn’t have a statistic for that because the county’s confirmed case count is so low. As the number builds, “we’ll break that out to how sick they were, how many are recovered. Statistically, it’s difficult to give meaningfulness to that discussion right now. So many patients have COVID that have not come to the confirmed diagnosis of COVID, of course, and that selection bias, if you will, will be to those with a milder disease. All of those will have recovered.”
It’s “unclear” as to how durable the immunity is after an infection, he said, but was sure there was at least partial protection.
“How thorough, how long, what that means if this COVID virus shifts a little bit genetically, it’s not clear,” Remington said.
Asked to compare Kosciusko County’s count to other Indiana counties of similar size and population, Remington said he clicked through the state’s dashboard map on Tuesday county by county.
“I didn’t calculate a ratio of population to cases, but the case count is quite variable. There are counties with much lower population than ours with significantly more cases. So I don’t see us standing head and shoulders, oddly, above another county. And I think a lot of these case counts reflect the availability of testing. It’s just been imperfect. Who knows what the real case count is, county to county,” Remington explained.
He said testing will improve, but there are supply chain issues, from the amount of test tubes to swaps to others. “It will get better,” he said.
If worst comes to the worst, the county’s law enforcement agencies and county prosecutor have a plan in place, Dukes said. While law enforcement is “healthy,” his biggest concern is the county jail.
“One of my biggest stress levels is the jail and worrying about what would happen if the virus would get into our jail,” Dukes said.
Every morning he says he meets with Jail Commander Shane Coney and they talk. As of Wednesday, the jail is free of the virus, he said.
“We’re going through and taking the proactive measures we have to take,” Dukes said, adding the jail has had to change some of its policies and procedures.
The jail is not closed, he said, and it’s trying to operate as normal. It is not releasing any inmates. As of Wednesday morning, the jail’s population was 225; it legally holds 294 inmates.
Dukes said actions have been taken to lower the jail population, including that the Kosciusko County Jail is not a free holding facility for the state prisons. It is still transporting people to prison who need to go there, including five last week.
If someone is incarcerated in the county jail, they are put in a holding cell for 48 hours. Their temperature is taken constantly and are given medical attention, Dukes said, adding the jail could implement more of that.
He said no business owners were going to jail for being open at this time of the pandemic.
“That’s not what we’re wanting to do, that’s not what we’re doing. There’s a lot of things into play before that even happens,” Dukes said. “We rely on you as moms, and dads and grandpas and grandmas to make the right decisions for you and your families.”
Right now Dukes said the call volume for the sheriff’s office is low.
“(County Prosecutor) Dan Hampton and I and (Warsaw Police Chief) Scott Whitaker and I, we’ve had a lot of conversations on this because this is an area of law enforcement that we’re concerned about: At what point in time is our call volume going to go up? We are, in the last four days, starting to see a small increase in verbal and physical altercations, fights. But right now, I can tell you, our deputy sheriffs are patrolling our neighborhoods, trying to be seen, but that is a question that time will tell,” Dukes said.
Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Chief Mike Wilson said the community will see first responders looking a little different.
“We’ve had a couple of questions about why are you wearing what you’re wearing,” he said. “The question came to me, ‘Are you afraid to come to our door?’ It’s not that. It’s that we’re wearing the mask and the long-sleeve protection and the gloves to protect you from the cases we could have just come from. So it’s more of an aspect for the community that you’re going to see law enforcement, EMS, firefighters throughout the whole county doing this more as a help in not spreading anything we could have contracted ourselves in the community. We’re still there.”
Every morning, he said leaders of emergency services do communicate with him and he passes along any updates from the health department that it has for the first responders.
“We’re not looking at what we can do tomorrow as we’re planning for weeks ahead,” Wilson said.
The next COVID-19 press conference, which is livestreamed on the city’s website, will be at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 15.
“Our summer residents, we appreciate you, you bring a lot to our community in a lot of ways, but if they’re coming from a hotspot, we really encourage them to do the 14-day quarantine period. Just to keep this area as minimal as possible as far as infections,” he said during the weekly press conference Wednesday from City Hall.
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer said the city and county having put a lot of guidance in place before the coronavirus confirmed cases started growing “is going to be helpful.”
Jackson, Thallemer, Kosciusko County Health Department Public Health Officer Dr. William Remington and Kosciusko County Sheriff Kyle Dukes took part in Wednesday’s press conference on COVID-19, how the two government entities are handling the pandemic and Gov. Eric Holcomb’s executive orders extending the stay-at-home order until April 20.
Thallemer said Holcomb’s Executive Order 20-18 took effect Tuesday and that the city and county are following the leadership of Holcomb and President Donald Trump, and that’s important.
Jackson agreed, saying, “The city and the county work very well together all the time; especially now, it’s extra important. Our stance with the county is, we’re following what the governor set forth. We’re trying not to run ahead of him, but he has a lot of people there at the state that are working full-time, checking data and trying to make the best decisions, so it doesn’t make sense to try and reinvent the wheel.”
He said because Holcomb has to, the governor is making a “one-size-fits-all type of band-aid for the whole state,” so that if it’s adequate for larger population areas, then it should be on the side of caution for areas like Kosciusko County. Jackson said he feels good the county is staying in line with Holcomb.
Thallemer said essential travel is an issue he hears every day from people who have concerns about it, including going out shopping.
“I’m hearing many different sides of this thing and understand that it’s not an easy issue,” he said. “I know the governor did ask specifically in his executive order to limit the number of household members who travel to and enter stores for the purpose of making purchases. That’s just one of those common-sense things.”
Thallemer said he didn’t think there was any store here that has restricted so many people from coming in per family, although one store is limiting shoppers to those who are 16 years of age and older. Another store he talked to is going to limit one shopper per household beginning next week.
“I think it’s more of an idea for folks to understand, don’t pile family in the car to get out for an outing to go to the store. It’s not only endangering our other citizens, but it’s endangering the workforce who’s a little bit skittish now working in areas where people are coming in,” Thallemer said.
He said he went out Monday to the large stores and home improvement stores and talked to their managers to find out how they were going to handle the executive order that went into effect Tuesday. He also received two calls Wednesday morning.
There are three stores in the Warsaw community “taking the lead.” Walmart is only allowing one entrance in and out and reducing the number of shoppers in the store at one time from 5,500 to 1,000. Owen’s corporate decided to limit the number of shoppers to half their capacity, while Aldi’s is setting a limit on the number of people inside their stores. The corporate offices of Meijer and Lowe’s are in discussion of what they’re going to do, Thallemer said.
“I did talk to one store, and I won’t mention a name because I’m not sure they have or will enact it, but there was discussion about doing temperature scans on customers before they go in. I don’t know that that’s been implemented. We’ll wait and see on that one,” Thallemer said.
Holcomb’s order prohibits any playground from being open, Thallemer said, acknowledging the police tape around swingsets and such.
“It’s hard for me as a mayor to take those wonderful amenities we’ve got (away). The weather is getting nice, we need that exercise, but following the state and federal guidelines, those are places where contamination can occur, does occur, will occur if we leave those areas open,” Thallemer said.
There are open areas in the park so people can take strolls or walk their pets while practicing safe distances.
Signs have been posted in the parks about the playgrounds, and the mayor said the city has taken calls both ways complaining about the closing of recreational sites.
The Pike Lake campground is very popular every summer in Warsaw. Holcomb’s order now restricts campgrounds around the state.
“Campgrounds are essentially closed, unless you’re in an RV or a cabin, and that comes directly from the state order, and you don’t have a permanent residence,” Thallemer said.
An example would be someone who takes their RV to Florida and comes back to Warsaw in the summer.
“We actually have three such cases out at our campground. We have notified all the rest of the campground campers, with the exception of those three people who are in an RV and have no residence, per the directive from the governor. We are having them sign affidavits that that is indeed true,” Thallemer said.
There are a number of “great things” going on in the community during the pandemic, Thallemer wanted people to understand.
“This community, like many other communities, is coming together,” he said, mentioning United Way’s Darren Bickel as one person taking the lead to put together a weekly meeting of people involved in food, housing and other issues. The core group helps manage resources with all the players in the community, Thallemer said.
He said the school corporations are doing a “marvelous” job of getting meals out to the kids. “I just can’t thank all the volunteers and employees at the schools, under the direction of the superintendents, to get the food out,” Thallemer said. “I know they’re dropping off, delivering, they’re doing everything they can. They’re literally getting thousands of meals out since all of this started and they’re continuing to do that.”
Lastly, he thanked the foundations and others for their generosity in trying to support the missions of all the local nonprofits that are trying to navigate the crisis.
“There’s just too many to list and they all need help,” Thallemer said.
After announcing Kosciusko County has had its first COVID-19 death – a 70-year-old man being treated at Kosciusko Community Hospital for the coronavirus – and that the county case count is up to 16 since March 26, Remington spoke about whether or not people should wear masks.
“Masking, yes! If you are in public, and need to step into an environment where it would be very difficult to, or uncertain as to your ability to be successful with social distancing, then you should wear a non-medical mask. A simple scarf will do,” Remington said.
In most medical environments, he believes there is an universal medical-grade masking protocol at this point.
“This is going to be a while yet,” Remington said, noting that if this was a nine-inning ball game, it might be the third or fourth inning.
“But I want to emphasize the next two to three weeks will likely be where we see the apex of the surge, the top of the mountain, if you will,” Remington said. “Don’t let those official case counts that seem so low – 14, 15, 16 cases – fool you. It underrepresents the issue, as our unfortunate announcement this morning of the first death. To be sure, our healthcare facilities on the frontline are seeing this thoroughly. The next two weeks will be particularly heavy for them.”
He encouraged anyone making masks to make plenty of them. Thallemer said Parkview Hospital, the health department and Salvation Army are three places accepting donations of face masks.
While patients have certainly recovered from COVID-19, Remington said he didn’t have a statistic for that because the county’s confirmed case count is so low. As the number builds, “we’ll break that out to how sick they were, how many are recovered. Statistically, it’s difficult to give meaningfulness to that discussion right now. So many patients have COVID that have not come to the confirmed diagnosis of COVID, of course, and that selection bias, if you will, will be to those with a milder disease. All of those will have recovered.”
It’s “unclear” as to how durable the immunity is after an infection, he said, but was sure there was at least partial protection.
“How thorough, how long, what that means if this COVID virus shifts a little bit genetically, it’s not clear,” Remington said.
Asked to compare Kosciusko County’s count to other Indiana counties of similar size and population, Remington said he clicked through the state’s dashboard map on Tuesday county by county.
“I didn’t calculate a ratio of population to cases, but the case count is quite variable. There are counties with much lower population than ours with significantly more cases. So I don’t see us standing head and shoulders, oddly, above another county. And I think a lot of these case counts reflect the availability of testing. It’s just been imperfect. Who knows what the real case count is, county to county,” Remington explained.
He said testing will improve, but there are supply chain issues, from the amount of test tubes to swaps to others. “It will get better,” he said.
If worst comes to the worst, the county’s law enforcement agencies and county prosecutor have a plan in place, Dukes said. While law enforcement is “healthy,” his biggest concern is the county jail.
“One of my biggest stress levels is the jail and worrying about what would happen if the virus would get into our jail,” Dukes said.
Every morning he says he meets with Jail Commander Shane Coney and they talk. As of Wednesday, the jail is free of the virus, he said.
“We’re going through and taking the proactive measures we have to take,” Dukes said, adding the jail has had to change some of its policies and procedures.
The jail is not closed, he said, and it’s trying to operate as normal. It is not releasing any inmates. As of Wednesday morning, the jail’s population was 225; it legally holds 294 inmates.
Dukes said actions have been taken to lower the jail population, including that the Kosciusko County Jail is not a free holding facility for the state prisons. It is still transporting people to prison who need to go there, including five last week.
If someone is incarcerated in the county jail, they are put in a holding cell for 48 hours. Their temperature is taken constantly and are given medical attention, Dukes said, adding the jail could implement more of that.
He said no business owners were going to jail for being open at this time of the pandemic.
“That’s not what we’re wanting to do, that’s not what we’re doing. There’s a lot of things into play before that even happens,” Dukes said. “We rely on you as moms, and dads and grandpas and grandmas to make the right decisions for you and your families.”
Right now Dukes said the call volume for the sheriff’s office is low.
“(County Prosecutor) Dan Hampton and I and (Warsaw Police Chief) Scott Whitaker and I, we’ve had a lot of conversations on this because this is an area of law enforcement that we’re concerned about: At what point in time is our call volume going to go up? We are, in the last four days, starting to see a small increase in verbal and physical altercations, fights. But right now, I can tell you, our deputy sheriffs are patrolling our neighborhoods, trying to be seen, but that is a question that time will tell,” Dukes said.
Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Chief Mike Wilson said the community will see first responders looking a little different.
“We’ve had a couple of questions about why are you wearing what you’re wearing,” he said. “The question came to me, ‘Are you afraid to come to our door?’ It’s not that. It’s that we’re wearing the mask and the long-sleeve protection and the gloves to protect you from the cases we could have just come from. So it’s more of an aspect for the community that you’re going to see law enforcement, EMS, firefighters throughout the whole county doing this more as a help in not spreading anything we could have contracted ourselves in the community. We’re still there.”
Every morning, he said leaders of emergency services do communicate with him and he passes along any updates from the health department that it has for the first responders.
“We’re not looking at what we can do tomorrow as we’re planning for weeks ahead,” Wilson said.
The next COVID-19 press conference, which is livestreamed on the city’s website, will be at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 15.
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