Community members share coffee and questions with Mayor Knox

Newly hired City Manager Mark Mitchell began the community partners conference call Wednesday morning by extending gratitude, on behalf of Mayor George Knox, to both Cottey College and Nevada Regional Medical Center for their presentation of Cottey's reopening plan at Tuesday night's City Council meeting. "We're grateful that they were able to come and share their re-opening plan and partnership that they have,” stated Mitchell. Updates were then given by the community’s medical leaders.

Vernon County Health Department

Locally, we’ve kind of had a quiet week,” stated Administrator Steve Durnell. “We added six positive cases to our total — most of those were the end of last week and this weekend. This week, thankfully, it’s been pretty quiet. The state numbers have kind of looked ugly the last couple days. I don’t have much except we’re trying to finish up our estimates on our tier 1 vaccinations that they’re telling us is coming this fall. We’re not 100 percent sure that we’re going to get all of those — they haven’t given any number amounts. And they also think some of it may go to the hospital. We’re just waiting on the word of how much we’re going to get.”

Nevada Regional Medical Center

“I’m kind of like the health department, it’s been quiet for us this week,” stated Nevada Regional Medical Center CEO Steve Branstetter. “We have nobody in the hospital right now with the virus. We’ve done about 1,000 tests here at the hospital and I think our numbers are in the mid to low 40s, so our percentage is really good. I think Nevada has done pretty good, overall, with what we’re doing. Not much to report, which is good.” Mitchell then asked Branstetter if NRMC would be getting any type of antibody testing. “I don’t believe so,” stated Branstetter. “I don’t think we’re really looking at the antibody test.”

Vernon County Commission

“We’ve started the second round of applications for the CARES funds,” stated Northern Commissioner Cindy Thompson. “Our next deadline is Aug. 14. Those are both for expenses incurred as well as anything they may want to do — anticipated expenses can be addressed in this round as well. It’s been advertised in the paper and the radio and it is on our website as well.”

Walmart

“The way we’re dealing with the masks is we have a health ambassador out at the sidewalk before you come in the door,” stated Store Manager Henry Wallace. “We’ve closed every door coming into the store, except the grocery side. The health ambassador will be easily identified with black polo. They will tell the customers that it is mandatory — it’s required to wear a mask in the store. The customer has the right to refuse that and, at this point, they get a secondary conversation. We offer them a mask at that point and if they still choose not to wear it, we will continue to let them shop at this time.”