- April 24, 2024
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The rate of COVID-19 transmission is decreasing in Flagler County and in Florida, but officials expect a spike — hopefully a brief one — as schools reopen.
"When we open up the schools, we’ll see another peak, and then it will relax back to where it was," Palm Coast Fire Chief Jerry Forte said in Palm Coast's Virtual Town Hall on Aug. 26.
"It just takes one case to spark an exposure ... that could result in the quarantine of numerous students, teachers and staff for up to 14 days at home."
— BOB SNYDER, Florida Department of Health-Flagler administrator
Forte was extrapolating based on experience with previous reopenings of facilities like restaurants, which would typically lead to an increase in cases within a couple of weeks of the opening before the rate would drop back down again.
The Florida Department of Health-Flagler has added 27 staff members, mostly nurses, to help with case investigation and contact tracing, and its teams will take action when there are outbreaks at schools, said Bob Snyder, DOH-Flagler administrator.
"It just takes one case to spark an exposure ... that could result in the quarantine of numerous students, teachers and staff for up to 14 days at home," Snyder said.
But, he added, "I am confident in the ability and competence of our public health and school health team partners for keeping as many students and teachers as safe and healthy as possible."
The community will be notified of outbreaks at the schools, he said, responding to resident questions about school reopenings.
Although the school district isn't requiring classrooms to be cleaned between every class, janitorial staff are conducting a deep clean on classrooms at the end of every day, he said, responding to another question.
Palm Coast City Manager Matt Morton said that the city is waiting to reopen City Hall until after the school reopenings.
"That was a strategic decision to give that gap, instead of opening two very large institutions at the same time," Morton said. Instead, the city decided to allow some time after the school reopenings, to "let that be a little bit of a community bell weather."
Schools reopened to students on Aug. 24.
"We know this rapid testing strategy works. It’s been modeled. It works somewhere between very well and fantastic."
— DR. STEPHEN BICKEL, medical director, Florida Department of Health-Flagler
City Hall is scheduled to reopen on Oct. 5, and the city will hold its first in-person City Council meeting the following evening.
In Flagler County, Snyder said, the percentage of COVID-19 tests that come back positive has averaged 5.1% over the past 14 days, and had been 7.3% for the previous two-week period.
A total of 15 Flagler County residents have died from COVID-19.
The virus' RT value is now 0.91, where a value of one would mean that the virus was consistently replacing itself and less than one means that it is decreasing.
"This indeed is really good news, but ... we are not out of the woods yet, and we won’t be until a safe and effective vaccine is broadly administered," Snyder said.
There is, though, another measure that could significantly help, he said — rapid COVID-19 tests that could return results in minutes.
Those are in development. Some versions, which return a result quickly but still require the use of laboratory facilities, are now in use at certain hospitals and urgent care centers, but aren't being provided to health departments.
The DOH-Flagler is pushing the state to distribute them to health departments, so that the DOH-Flagler can use them to catch cases early, before infected people have a chance to spread the virus widely.
"Unfortunately, a supply chain issue does exist," Snyder said. "But we are endeavoring to overcome this, and I assure you we will."
The health department is also interested in a still-in-development, next-generation version of the rapid tests which would not require specialized equipment, and could therefore be conducted almost anywhere — say, at a school — to test large groups of people at one time.
"This is such a dramatic potential game changer," said Dr. Stephen Bickel, DOF-Flagler medical director. "The vaccine may or may not come soon, they may or may not be highly effective. ... We know this rapid testing strategy works. It’s been modeled. It works somewhere between very well and fantastic."
Until then, mask-wearing and social distancing are the best tools available to combat the spread of the virus, he said.
Bickel and Snyder noted that during the last spike, amid controversy, Palm Coast and then other area cities passed mask requirements, and the positivity rate then started to decline.
"I wanted to give a shoutout to the courage of doing that: In retrospect, it seems like an obvious, very smart decision, but it wasn’t an easy decision at that time," Bickel said. "And I’m not doing it to just pat ourselves on the back, but to explain to people: Can we stop the debate about masks? … it really to me was a false controversy. ... I think it’s really clear now."
Mayor Milissa Holland said she's noticed that most Palm Coast stores now have signs at their entrance requiring masks.
"The response I've gotten from many residents has been they feel safer going into stores, so I think it's had the effect of helping restart the economy," she said. "So there's a level of confidence there that we hope to continue. ... This will be a continual process."
