Broadcast on WLOS, April 8, 2020
Buncombe County leaders are looking at cities hit hard by COVID-19, like New York City, to properly prepare here in the mountains.
Emergency Services Director Taylor Jones says New York has seen a drop in the number of emergency responders due to the virus and wants Buncombe County to be ready for the worst.
“A-B Tech has done a phenomenal job at just-in-time training for our emergency medical response team,” Jones said.
Jones said county workers have been given emergency medical responders training and have been taught how to drive ambulances.
“We are going to need minute men and minute women when this thing peaks on us,” Jones said.
The county is looking at two major prediction models that determine North Carolina’s peak phase.
“Unfortunately, we just don’t have the data at this time to know the extent of impact of COVID-19,” Buncombe County Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Fletcher Tove said.
Tove said the models are similar, but have different estimations of when North Carolina will enter its peak phase, based on physical distancing policies across the state.
“The Medical Health and Evaluation Model predicts maybe as early as April 13 North Carolina will enter its peak phase, whereas the RTI International Model, which was released this week, says that we could be looking at peak phase starting mid May to late May,” Tove said.
Jones said the county is looking at setting up a hospital at the UNCA Sherrill Center to care for both COVID and non-COVID patients, while leaning on A-B Tech to train workers to staff the location.
“What we are seeing in other hospitals is when they reach that peak, if we can decompress other healthy patients out of there, that allows more room for acute care and for patients who need ventilators and other specialized care where physicals and nurses can apply,” Jones said.
Jones said the county is also preparing for a large number of deaths.
“We obtained three trailers, refrigerated trailers, working with the state and are putting together a mass fatality plan as unified efforts from our whole region,” Jones said.