'Inevitable' that Jackson County will see more COVID-19 cases

The County's health officer warns people not to be complacent as the area begins to reopen.

Us.

Has moving forward.

So tell us a little bit about your major concerns as we start to head into friday and what may be coming for you and our area in the future.

Well, i, i'm just afraid that our little region may be a little loaded than complacency.

We've done a great job, bent the curve.

We've seen hardly.

Any new cases in quite some time, uh, which in case we don't have a lot of virus circulating in our community now, but, um, it's pretty clear.

I think people are, are getting cabin fever.

They're ready to go shopping, they're ready to go to restaurants, play sports together.

And i think it's almost inevitable that we're going to have more cases soon, soon after we, after we opened up, uh, at public health.

We're trying to.

I encourage everyone with any symptoms to get tested so we can identify cases early.

We want to do aggressive contact tracing.

Uh, we'll do our best to protect the community as this phenomena happens.

But i would encourage people not to let up on their vigilance.

This disease is easily transmitted.

Certainly when you put, uh, people in doors together, we need to be wearing masks anytime you're indoors around others.

And, uh, for courtesy sake, probably when you're outdoors walking around as well.

You mentioned testing.

I know we have spoken in the past you said you had some tests, but not all the equipment you needed to provide those tests.

Has that situation reversed and do you have the contact tracing team in place that you also feel comfortable with?

Yes, yes.

I in both counts.

I think we have greatly increased our testing capacity.

We have a lot more diversity of testing so that if one system goes down, there's other systems that can.

Come and take its place.

We probably don't have enough testing, but we, we have more testing and i think we have enough to open up and get started.

Yes.

I probably know the answer to this when people go back out.

Obviously social distancing and personal hygiene habits are something we should, as you said, keep in our forefront of our minds.

If you had to advise people where not to go as they try and break out of the cabin fever as you described, where would you say best to try and eliminate from your, from your activities?

I would not go anywhere indoors, in tight quarters with others.

Uh, in particular, if everyone is not masked, if you're in a place where some people are wearing masks, some people aren't, some people are laughing and talking and congregating, and you know, they, they may feel they have a right to do that, but it actually puts everyone else in that same airspace at risk.

So if that's the situation you think you're going to be going into and avoid going there.

Day, and they will all face new challenges.

Not only do the restaraunts have to hire their staff back on which can take some time--- but there are new safety measures in place.

Dine in will have to keep tables 6 feet apart, and the way people consume is changing too.

"i am sure there are going to be people that even if we are open are not comfortable going out in public and would perfer to have their food delivered or just pick it up.

So, we are going to need staff to help with that as well as man the restaraunt for dine-in."

Coming up on newswatch 12 at 6, how realistic it is for places like