When word got out that someone who either worked at the Fort Gratiot Hobby Lobby or visited the store had contracted COVID-19, the news spread quickly. The Times-Herald heard from readers who wanted to know the details. The media had been calling Wayne County a coronavirus hot spot. People in The Thumb wanted to know how close the pandemic was getting to them.
In St. Clair County, most information on the local impact of the virus is announced by the health department’s emergency operations center, according to the Times-Herald. The St. Clair County Health Department puts out daily press releases and weekend Facebook videos.
The trouble is, by the time a person gets sick enough to go to the hospital, two weeks or more may have passed since the infected person has come in contact with the person who infected them. In the meantime, the infected person likely went to the grocery store, pumped gas, interacted with family members and perhaps even went to work.
Like most of us, Port Huron resident Pamela Maes is anxious for information. “Where are these cases? We have to go to the grocery store, periodically, and doctors’ appointments.… I (wanted) to know the particular areas to avoid in the county,” she told the Times-Herald.
For two weeks after March 12, the county health department shared the age and gender of each new positive case, as well as whether those individuals had traveled recently and if they were recovering at home or in a hospital, the Times-Herald said. They also reported how many individuals and other contacts were being monitored.
By March 26, health officials decided to change that policy. The county would only report numbers related to confirmed cases and no other information.
Dr. Annette Mercatante, medical health officer for the health department, said specific information about individuals was not helpful or necessary in updates about the response to the virus’s spread.
“Testing is biased to the most severe, so reporting on these people (ages, co-morbidities, status) is not only a risk for inappropriate community identification and response, but is also unduly alarming,” she told the Times-Herald.
“Remember that less than 20% of cases are sick enough to receive hospital care,” Mercatante said. “Although people may think that specific information about COVID locations and conditions will give them usable information, this is not the case.”
Mercatante said public health nurses are responsible for communicable disease investigation. When someone becomes a confirmed coronavirus case, a public health nurse interviews that person to find out everyone that they may have been in contact with and every location that they have visited in the past few weeks.
“The nurses work tirelessly in the shadows to support the entire mission,” Mercatante told the Times-Herald. “If you are contacted by a health department nurse, please make sure you answer, so the disease investigation process can continue.”
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