Medical officer pleased with local response to COVID-19

Editor’s note: This version corrects misquotations in the second and eighth paragraphs where Dr. Kevin Harada talks about ramping up testing.

Adequate supplies, adequate staffing is taking place at Northern Montana Hospital and measures are being taken to protect the community, the hospital's chief medical officer said.

"I think when COVID-19 started in the middle of our respiratory season we saw a lot of people with influenza, we saw a lot of people with strep throat and as it became more on the forefront of people's minds more and more people were thinking of the possibility of having it, and that's why we started our Flu Clinic to help screen those types of people and we've been following the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's) guidelines and testing who needed to be tested," Dr. Kevin Harada said. "We want to ramp up testing, but for now we are still following those CDC guidelines."

In the past couple of weeks, he said, he has seen a decline in influenza as well as well as strep and respiratory illness from a seasonal standpoint.

"We hope to see that COVID-19 will decrease around the state and the nation here pretty soon as well," he added. "We're hoping that as things loosen up, such as testing becomes available and maybe an antibody testing, we could start to get a better handle of how much of COVID-19 was out there, so that way we can start establishing some trends, but when we look at the nationwide and state trend we see that, possibly, some of the cases are leveling out and especially in Montana. It appears that things may be slowing down a little bit."

He said the shelter-in-place and the stay-at-home orders are working, especially in Montana with the limited number of cases and having at least five counties in the state where no community spread was active.

Harada said social distancing and staying six feet apart are the only tools to help the spread.

As of last Thursday, about 37 people in Havre have been tested with one positive case in Hill County, he said, adding that organizations in surrounding areas such as Rocky Boy Health Service has the ability to test people.

"We have some other testing capabilities, and so as we know what those supplies are going to be and what the state is going to be able to supply, we're hoping we're able to ramp some sort of testing," he said. "We have received some more tests and ability to send (tests). There have been other ways advised to send a test to the state and so we're working on that, which has effectively doubled our capacity, so we have about 70 tests right now, which we can send."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has sent the state rapid testing kits which will then be dispersed to the hospitals, he said.

Harada said the staff at the clinic and the hospital is handling everything "beautifully."

"We've made the determination that we have kept everyone on staff, so everyone who wants to work can work," he said. "I think we are appropriately staffed for this current situation."

  If a surge of COVID-19 happens, he said, the clinic and hospital will be able to staff all the positions.

Not only are an adequate number of staff working, but staff is also adequate in means of supplies to protect the staff, he added.

"We started conserving from day one and had a fairly good job with that,"  Harada said. "We're hoping to see that as cases and such drop across the nation those supply lines will open up and we will really know what we need to stock, and what we need to have overstock as such in moving forward."

In the future, in concerns of a second wave of COVID-19 hitting, Harada said, outbreaks might occur, but preventative measures are being taken and adequate testing is needed. 

"If you have certain symptoms, you can adequately test people and isolate those specific people then you don't have to isolate an entire population," he said. " ... I think, what happened was we could not identify those cases quickly enough and hence, why we are in the shelter-in-place across the nation as we are.

"So we're hoping that with adequate testing and quick testing and also identifying who all has had it by antibody testing we can identify how prevalent this actually was across the nation, and any other outbreaks we can quickly identify them and isolate them," he added.

He said the response has been a team effort involving the entire area, not just medical personnel.

"The one thing I'd like to add is how appreciative we are with our community," he said. "We all understand what people are sacrificing and we're getting stir crazy as well, we know the weather is getting nicer, but we just want to thank the whole community for standing behind us and we do think and we're confident that what we're doing is working and is preventing these cases."