In the first nine minutes of Wednesday’s weekly press briefing on COVID-19, Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer squeezed in comments on the Fairbanks Study, areas of the city park system reopening, city flooding issues and Monday night’s problem with the livestreaming of two city meetings.

Fairbanks Study

The Fairbanks Study is a collaboration between the Indiana State Department of Health and the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI, according to news.iu.edu. In the first phase, researchers tested more than 4,600 Hoosiers between April 25 and May 1 for viral infections and antibodies of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. This number includes more than 3,600 people who were randomly selected and an additional 900 volunteers recruited through outreach to the African American and Hispanic communities to more accurately represent state demographics, the website states.

Thallemer said Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb initiated the Fairbanks Study several weeks ago.

“What they found in Indiana was that there’s approximately a 2.8% infection rate in the state, and roughly – if you extrapolate that into our county, with our county population and take that 2.8% infection rate, it suggests that there could be as many as 2,200 people in the county that have had it or currently have it, so I just thought it was important to bring that up, understanding that our numbers of those with symptoms that have been tested positive, I think around 60 right now, and this suggests there’s a lot more COVID activity kind of beneath the surface of that formal testing on those with symptoms,” Thallemer said.

He said the other “interesting” things they learned was that “roughly 44% of those folks that have had it in that random population were completely asymptomatic, which also kind of underscores the importance of being vigilant with our infection controls – social distancing, masks and handwashing and so forth.”

He said that figure would translate to just under 1,000 people in Kosciusko County having COVID-19 who don’t know that they have it.

If you are in a household with someone who has tested positive, Thallemer said the study indicates there’s a 12-times greater rate of infection. “That just underscores the importance of social distancing,” Thallemer continued.

He said there will be a repeat test in June of a new random 5,000 people that will provide information on whether the disease is progressing. That information will help determine Phases 4 and 5 of the state’s, city’s and county’s reopening plans.

Later in the meeting, Kosciusko County Health Department Public Health Officer Dr. William Remington said it was four months ago “on this date” that the first U.S. confirmed COVID-19 case was announced. Almost two months ago, Kosciusko had its first case.

“Now, there are 1.5 million U.S. confirmed cases; 29,000 in Indiana and we have 62 confirmed cases in the county,” Remington said. “And as the mayor just related, from the Fairbanks Study, there have been a lot more cases than have been confirmed. We have felt that all along.”

He said the virus has shown efficiency in transmission through the population, “undoubtedly, as we know now, including lots of people with no symptoms shedding the virus. And we have been fortunate in this county.”

He said the hospitalization pressure from the county has been low as reported to the KCHD. There’s only been nine hospitalizations during the pandemic involving Kosciusko County residents; and there’s been one death.

“In the last two weeks, our case count has gone up quite a bit – 23 more cases. In that last two weeks, we’ve done 430 tests that we know of. Probably more just have not been reported to us,” Remington said. “So our percent positivity remains low. It’s hovered around 5% for weeks.”

On Sunday, Thallemer said the playgrounds, pickleball and tennis courts will be opening with restrictions in regard to social distancing. If social distancing isn’t possible, people should wear masks, he said. The park office will be opening June 1 with restrictions, as will the other city buildings, he said.

Flooding

Going on a side note, Thallemer said in the last few days there’s been flooding issues in the community due to a big amount of rain Sunday night and Tuesday.

“Everything pretty much crested. We delivered about 21 pallets of sandbags out to Sunset Drive,” Thallemer said.

He talked to Street Superintendent Jeff Beeler Wednesday morning who told him there were no requests for sandbags then. He said hopefully there will be some leveling-off of Pike Lake and no further action will be necessary, but they’re keeping an eye on areas that typically flood.

A woman from the Forest Park mobile home park in Warsaw said Wednesday morning that residents were trapped by flood water again and there were people in there who are medically frail and can not get access to needed services. Before the press briefing, Fire Chief Mike Wilson said Forest Park is privately owned so the city is limited to what it can do. An engineer was hired by the mobile home park to look at raising the road, but Wilson had no known timeline as to when or if that would be done. He also said emergency vehicles could get in and out of the park, and the roads have been checked every morning for access.

Wednesday afternoon, Beeler told Thallemer that water on the shallow side of the road was 8 inches deep, but vehicles could still get through. The street department was going to cordon off the deeper water, but the water appeared to be receding.

Meeting Interrupted

In another matter, on Monday, the livestream of the Warsaw Redevelopment Commission meeting for the public was inadvertently cut off at the one-hour mark, even though further business was discussed. The Common Council’s meeting Monday night also was cut off at the one-hour mark, though local media were able to make it to the meeting for the votes taken and the last half hour of the meeting.

“We had a little hiccup this week at a council meeting where our Boxcast went off inadvertently. There hadn’t been a community in this state that’s been more transparent with access to public meetings than our city. We’ve been streaming every one of our public meetings on Boxcast flawlessly. Essentially, it records the meetings, makes them available for future use and access, as well as livestreaming,” he said.

The city’s investment in professional audio and video is really tailored to the current conditions, he said, “Being able to provide that access to our community for these meetings that the public access counselor has allowed to go virtual.”

He said the hiccup was at a “very inopportune time” Monday night.

“We will certainly renew a little bit of public discussion about that item, which was the incentives for Nextremity out at the Tech Park. We’ve already taken a vote, we’ve already deliberated. We don’t want it to appear as a rehearsed meeting, but I think it’s important that since those comments were not heard, in their entirety, I think we’ll probably have some discussion at one of our next meetings coming up,” Thallemer said.

He said the vote was taken in front of the local press and was just a memorandum of understanding. The actual agreements will have to come before the board later in the year for public votes.

“Just to clarify what the public access counselor said, in the governor’s executive order, we have to make those meetings available to the public and the media. And the effort to do it virtually, we feel, has always been our strength, but we had a once-in-a-couple-years hiccup the other day that we can’t apologize for, we didn’t have anything to do with it, we’re certainly looking into it to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Thallemer said.

On Tuesday, the Times-Union contacted Indiana Public Access Counselor Luke Britt for his thoughts on what should happen if a livestreamed public meeting is cut off but the meeting itself continues and votes are taken.

Britt said if a board or council knows it went down, they should stop the meeting immediately and fix the problem and then reconvene at such a time the problem is fixed. If the board or council is not aware of a problem and continues on with the meeting, Britt said he didn’t see that as being subversive as it was unintentional. However, he said if the board finds out after the fact that not all the meeting was aired to the public, the board should go back and redo the vote. He said that was “best practice.” Another option would be that if the meeting was recorded, video or audio, that could be posted for the public.

A copy of the governor’s executive order, provided by Thallemer, states under the Open Door Law: “Suspend the requirement of governing bodies of public agencies to explicity adopt a policy for electronic participation and suspend the requirement to have any members be physically present for meetings deemed to be essential. ... Therefore, for the duration of this public health emergency, all governing bodies may meet by videoconference or by telephone conferencing so long as a quorum of members participate and any meeting is made available to members of the public and media.”

County Update

Speaking for the County Commissioners, President Brad Jackson said the county reopened Monday. He said, based on conversations he’s had, things are going well.

“I think we’re being pretty vigilant on things,” Jackson said, noting surfaces are being cleaned daily and they’re practicing and promoting social distancing.

The county has installed the “sneeze-guard” plexiglass. Each department head has made decisions they consider best for their employees.

“So, so far so good, and I’m glad to see we’re moving forward. I agree with Dr. Remington. We need to get this economy going because there is definitely damage as far as even life that’s being caused by being shutdown. So I think it’s good that we safely move forward.”