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ELKINS -- The Randolph County Office of Emergency Management hosted a conference call Friday for community leaders to provide local updates regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.
"If (the virus is) intending to (spread) like it has been, by April 27 it's going to be astronomical," said Cindy Hart, director of the Randolph County OEM. "I believe the statistic when I did the math would be one in every five people in the United States would actually have symptoms or the virus. We've got to encourage people to stay inside and stay isolated."
Bonnie Woodrum of the Randolph County Health Department suggested that those in low-risk situations with a lack of personal protective equipment could use "barrier precautions."
"If you don't have a mask and it's a relatively low-risk situation you're in, you can use a bandana," she said. "If you don't have a gown and your risk is low, you can use a barrier (such as) a long sleeved shirt turned backwards (or) a garbage bag... Anything that you can put between you and what you have to touch."
The OEM and state Department of Health and Human Resources have also been sharing state-provided PPE (personal protective equipment) with police and fire departments, EMS workers, nursing home and hospice employees, and healthcare providers, officials said.
"We've given away all that we got this week," Woodrum said. "We hope that there will be another order for next week and we're sharing with everybody what we can (but) they're coming in small batches."
"We have a lot of requests but unfortunately we can only give what we have," Hart said. "We may ask for 1,000 of one thing and we're lucky to get 100. Whatever we get, we're dividing them up the best we can and getting them to the people."
Hart also mentioned a new action plan devised by the state to support essential employees in need of childcare.
"Daycares have been shutting down, which is putting a burden on the people that are working who have kids. The state has come up with what they call critical access daycare," Hart said.
Daycare organizations are being chosen within each county to remain open and act as a critical access daycare for essential employees only.
The Randolph County critical access daycare had not been announced by presstime.
"If you make less than $1 million a year, and I couldn't make that up if I tried, but if you make less than $1 million a year, the state will pay your daycare during the COVID crisis. I don't know how long that funding will last," said Hart.
More information directly from the Randolph County OEM can be found on their new Facebook page, Randolph County Covid-19.
Look for updates in future editions of The Inter-Mountain.