Buncombe County Government, NC Coronavirus (COVID-19) Updates, 27 Aug 2020

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From YouTube: Buncombe County COVID-19 Community Update (August 27, 2020)

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Weekly COVID-19 Update for Buncombe County featuring Health Director Stacie Saunders and Director of Election Services Corinne Duncan.

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My mask protects you, your mask protects me: covid19 can spread. Even if you don't have symptoms wearing a face covering is the best thing you can do to help stop the spread of kovid in our community.

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Do your part to save the life of a neighbor friend or family member by wearing a face covering we work hard to keep our community safe? Do your part to protect us.

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Good afternoon and welcome to the august 27th community update, my name is stacy wood and I'm a public information officer here within the emergency operations center. As a reminder, this update can also be found in spanish on facebook, at buncombe, county health and human services, facebook page and that can be found at the handle bchs.

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Today's updates will include a special guest, we'll get started with stacy saunders, public health director and then corrine duncan. The election services director here in buncombe county will provide an update so we'll go ahead and get started with stacy.

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Saunders good afternoon, everyone and thank you for joining us today. As of today, there have been two thousand three hundred and fifty lab confirmed cases of covet 19 in buncombe county residents.

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Our community has administered over 50 000 covid19 tests. Sadly, we as a community have experienced 67 coveted related deaths. The majority of those deaths have been associated with long-term care facility outbreaks.

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Recent percent positivity published on the north carolina kova dashboard shows 8.2 percent of covet. 19 tests performed are coming back positive in north carolina.

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This percentage for the state has been hovering around 8 percent for the last few weeks. Our current percent positivity in buncombe county is between 4 and 5 percent.

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We continue to see about 25 new cases per day. On average. This trend has been consistent for about three weeks.

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Our metrics are stable, but this is not a sign that we can stop doing the things that help us stop the spread of covet 19..

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It is important for us to continue to commit to the three w's and we are making a difference. Each time we wear a face covering stay six feet apart and wash our hands the cdc, revised their guidance yesterday on who should seek testing.

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We want to be clear that north carolina department of health and human services, testing guidance has not changed, and buncombe county health and human services will continue to utilize, the north carolina department of health and human services testing guidance.

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So, let's talk about who should get tested and where testing is available. Goal of testing tracing and isolating is to keep covid19 from spreading throughout our community.

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Because cova-19 is highly transmissible and can be spread by people who do not know they have it. Testing is important for people who have symptoms and for people who are at higher risk for being exposed to covet 19..

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If you are having symptoms of cova 19 or think you may have been exposed to cova 19, where you live, work, learn or play you should get tested.

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The following groups are some of the populations with higher risk of exposure to cova 19 or at higher risk of severe disease. If they become infected.

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People in these groups should get tested if they believe they have been exposed to covet 19.

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Or migrant worker camps, people who are at high risk of severe illness like people who are over 65 years of age or people of any age, with an underlying health condition.

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People who come from historically marginalized populations, health care workers and first responders, such as ems law enforcement, fire department or the military, frontline and essential workers in settings where social distancing is difficult to maintain like our grocery stores, our gas station attendance and others.

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Also, people who have attended protests, rallies or other mass gatherings could have been exposed to someone with cova 19 or could have exposed others.

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If you do not have a health care provider who offers testing for cova 19 and you meet criteria for testing, you can use the state's find my testing site website to find covid testing near you.

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There are many places in our county offering testing for covid19, including primary care providers. Community health, centers urgent, cares, hospitals and pharmacies.

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You can also schedule an appointment of one of the county's community testing sites go to buncombe, county self-checker online or over the phone to make sure you should be tested.

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The buncombe county self-checker can be found online at buncomberready.

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You can also complete the self-checker over the phone by calling the ready team at.

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828-419-0095 from 8 30 a.m to 5 p.m. Monday, through friday, once you complete the self-checker online or over the phone, and your answers indicate that you should be tested, you will fill out a registration form once the registration form is complete and submitted. A representative from the ready team will contact you over the phone to schedule a date and time for your testing.

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Just as a reminder, please do not show up at the sites before making an appointment with a member of the ready team and receiving your assigned appointment time. This is especially important over the weekend at the sunday site.

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If you do not receive a call back from the ready team, you do not have an appointment yet, but once you do have your appointment, all you have to do is show up at the testing site on your scheduled date and time and get tested.

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Cost is not a barrier to testing at the community testing sites. There is no out of pocket cost to the testing. If you have insurance, it will be billed to cover the cost of the test, and spanish medical interpreters will be at the testing sites.

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In case you are tuning in. For the first time, our community testing sites are normally available on sundays, at a b tech tuesdays at the ingles and swannanoa and thursdays at buncombe county sports park.

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But I do want to make everyone aware that the community testing sites on sunday september, 6 and tuesday september 8th are canceled due to the labor day holiday.

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If you need testing during this time, please visit find my testing site for other community options.

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More information about cova 19 testing in buncombe county can be found at buncomberready.org once a case is identified. Local public health works with that positive case to identify their close contacts.

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These are the people who have been within six feet of the known case for 15 minutes or longer. Contact tracing then begins.

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You've heard me say this before this is the process of contacting the individuals who are in close contact of the known positive, individual contact tracing is very important to stopping the spread of virus in our community.

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Remember to answer the call individuals being contacted will get an initial text from the number 45394 or an email from dhhs.nc.gov, with a follow-up phone call from their local health department or nc outreach. 844.

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The community team will never ask for your social security, number bank or credit card numbers or any financial information. Any information shared during the call is a private health record and is strictly confidential.

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As you already know, the covid19 pandemic is a marathon not a sprint, and while it won't last forever, it is important to continue to put our efforts and our hearts into taking it seriously all the way to the finish line. So thank you for all that you are doing to protect yourself and others in our community.

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Let's continue to work together as one buncombe to reduce the spread of covid19.

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Now I will turn it over to our special guest. Today, corrine duncan director of election services in buncombe.

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Hello, everyone, I'm corrine duncan director of election services at buncombe county, and I'm happy we're here today to talk about how we can all participate in this november's election safely.

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Since march, our department has been focused on how we can ensure that everyone in buncombe county has the opportunity to vote safe. Our team has put together a short video on the topic and I'd like to share that with you now.

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Voters might understandably be apprehensive about going out in public to vote during this election in order to reduce crowds, we're trying to spread voters across voting methods. We have three ways to vote absentee by mail, so you don't have to go out in public. We have early voting where we have 16 locations across the county. These are big locations where social distancing can easily be implemented, and there is also a weight map at each of these locations.

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So you can see how many people are at an early voting site and, of course, we'll have voting on election day at all 80 locations across the county. So if you choose to vote in person, you'll be greeted by a greeter who will offer hand sanitizer and if you don't have a mask, they'll have masks available for you. You will then go to the check-in station where you will be given a single-use pen to take home with you and there'll, be a desk shield there between you and the poll worker.

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The poll worker will also have full ppe gloves, masks a face shield if they choose to use it and all the voting equipment will be sanitized before and after use by each voter.

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So the state board of elections has directed that no one can be turned away for not wearing a mask, but we want voting to be safe. So we strongly encourage that you do and that you make sure to social distance. We want to reassure people that voting is safe and that there are three options to vote. So don't let kovat take your vote.

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So in north carolina there's both in-person voting and absentee by mail. We know that many of our community members, especially those medically compromised, will choose to vote using absentee by mail to vote absentee by mail. An application must be submitted to our office. You can get the form on our website or visit our office to submit in person.

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You can mail, fax or hand deliver the form and the deadline is october. 27Th note that if you're mailing in your request, the u.s postal service recommends sending in a week earlier, that's october, 20th to date, we've received more than 25 000 absentee requests for mail-in ballots. This is a significant increase from the 2016 general election. When we received 7 500 requests.

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If you've submitted an application, you won't receive a notice that it's received you'll just get your ballot in the mail. You don't need to fill out more than one request. So, if you've sent one in we're taking care of you, it won't harm your application to send in a duplicate, but it does slow down our operations significantly.

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Next friday september, 4th we'll start mailing out the first ballots and if you've already submitted a request, you'll get your ballot within two weeks of september. 4Th your ballot will arrive with instructions and you'll need a witness once you've voted, you can either mail it back or drop it off in person when mailing in your ballot must be postmarked on or before election day. However, we do need to receive your ballots within three days of election day for it to be counted so with delays and postal operations.

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We encourage everyone to mail well before election day, you can also choose to drop off your ballot in person after september. 4Th community members can deliver their ballots to our office at 77 mcdowell street, where we'll have a separate line for absentee ballot delivery. So you won't need to go through our lobby.

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Another option is to deliver absentee ballots to any of our 16 early voting locations, which are open from october 15th to the 31st. You can find those locations at our website.

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Buncombecounty.Org vote there's not a separate line for absentee by mail delivery. At these locations, however, there will be a weight map available during early voting so that you can find the site with the least number of people in line whether hand delivering your absentee ballot at our office or at an early voting location you'll need to sign for it and an elections official will check it in you're allowed to turn in ballots for near relatives, but you cannot return ballots for your friends or neighbors.

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What about people in long-term care facilities with limited access to help? We have multi-partisan assistance teams, called mat teams available to assist voters in nursing homes, with both absentee requests and ballots. We work with facilities to provide this service, while following north carolina department of health guidelines for safety.

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If you would like to help with this effort, please let us know now: let's turn to voting in person, we know many people will choose to do so either through early voting or on election day. Voting in person will look different than it has in the past.

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For instance, one of our beloved voting traditions- the I voted sticker- will not be available this year, but you will get your own pen, as you saw in the video. Our poll workers will wear proper, face coverings and gloves use hand. Sanitizer adhere to social distancing and hand washing guidelines and will be provided with disinfecting wipes for high touch surfaces.

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Clear desktop shields will protect the check-in stations. Voters are encouraged to maintain social distancing from other individuals and polling sites will provide markers to help. Voters stay at least six feet apart. The distance between voting booths and equipment will also be increased to account for social distancing.

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Any surface touched by voters or poll workers will be sanitized between each use.

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This includes voting booths and equipment. Voters are strongly encouraged to wear, face coverings and masks will be available to any voter who wants. One safety is a priority. Nevertheless, as per the state board of elections, guidance, no one will be turned away for choosing not to.

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In addition to a mask, voters will also be offered hand sanitizer upon arrival. Greeters will provide pens for voters to keep and fill out their ballots. Cotton swabs will be available for ada touch screen equipment if needed to help reduce the time that you're in a polling location come prepared by looking up your sample ballot beforehand.

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You can find your sample ballot through the voter lookup tool on our website.

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Curbside voting for those unable to physically enter the voting location due to age or disability will use disposable privacy sleeves to conceal their ballot.

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We will not be screening, voters for fever or other symptoms, but election workers will self-screen for symptoms or exposures and will report these to the county boards of elections.

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Your vote matters and buncombe county election services is committed to doing everything we can to assure that you cast your ballot safely. There are many ways to vote safe and, if you have questions, call our office at 828-250-4200 or go to buncombecounty.org vote. Thank.

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Thank you to stacy saunders and corrine duncan for providing covid 19 updates that are important for our buncombe county community. The next update will be september 3rd at 3 pm. Thank you for staying engaged and have a safe and healthy weekend.

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