Home / Phased Reopening / COVID Update - July 2021

Phased Reopening / COVID Update - July 2021

Submitted by larry.white on Thu, 07/22/2021 - 10:43
Print

 

Key Point - MLS staying where we are on covid response and will be monitoring the community data to determine next steps 

 

Why

There are a lot of things to consider in the decision to move to normal operations: 

  • Case counts across the state and in OK county are increasing

  • Hospitalizations across the state are increasing 

  • OK county has a 53% vaccination rate which is higher than the 40% state average

  • OK county is currently listed by the State Health Department as a medium risk county (this is a 1-4 scale where 1 is bad and 4 is nothing wrong; we are a 3)

  • Covid case count increases are appearing more on the Eastern border of Oklahoma (Missouri and Arkansas border area) than other parts of the state

  • Schools will be going back to in-person classes in mid/late August and by statute, schools will not be able to require masks and will be limited in their response to covid outbreaks

  • Students between the ages of 12-18 (who are eligible for the vaccine) have only a 3% rate of being completely vaccinated

  • Some of you are very tired of the mask and distancing and now is the time to return to normal

  • Some of you are very concerned that now is not a good time to return to normal 

  • Customers are providing us feedback (and feedback to public officials) that they want us fully open now 

  • The Commision would like for us to return to normal in a safe way

  • Labor Day holiday will be coming up and last year we saw a spike in cases 2 weeks after the holiday

  • Officials are saying that it may be mid/late September - October before we see where the case counts are going

  • If we are gone from our customers completely too long, they may find other options to meet their needs

  • Our activity levels (door counts, circulations, etc.) have not returned to pre-covid levels and few locations are having to have customers wait for the use of things like computers, so there is not an immediate need to provide more furniture and computer access (i.e. have less social distancing)

  • Some of our meeting rooms are still full of furniture and some are needed for staff workspace due to social distancing needs; some could be used for public use though

  • Almost 5 months without a positive covid case among staff (following masking, protocols, and using PPE)

  • Where when this started, we had no experience with it, no protocols, and no PPE: now we have all three and it is working well, and we are in a good position to deal with whatever happens

  • We don't want to make a change in things just to turn around in a couple of weeks and change everything back again

  • At some point we need to find the new normal of how we operate, whether covid is here for a short time longer or an ongoing issue to deal with and move to that new position of normal. We can't stay in partial operations mode as a long-term strategy.

  • We can't hide behind our walls forever

While the current environment is not as good as we would like, it is also not as bad as it could be and we are in a good place right now to respond to what is happening, unlike last March 2020 when this started. I have said throughout this that this process is a balance between providing the customers the service they need and expect and keeping people safe. The same is true here as well. The balance point keeps moving, but we are trying to keep the balance, nonetheless. We need information to make good decisions to keep the balance and right now there is not enough to provide a definitive direction. While we gather our information, it seems most prudent for the time being to remain where we are in responding to covid until we see where things are going. 

We will keep monitoring what is happening over the next few weeks and when we get the information we need to act, we will do so, and we will provide a minimum of two weeks warning to everyone if there is to be a change in covid response. 

Some examples of the types of data I am looking at to understand how things are going:

We will remain in Sit and Stay until we get enough information to make an informed decision about how to return to normal operations. It is still our goal to resume normal operations as quickly and as safely as we can do so. 

Thank you for your patience in this process. 

Tags: 
COVID, Phased Reopening, Executive Director Update

Comments

1
Fri, 07/23/2021 - 14:24
jana.henderson
Thank you

Thank you for explaining your thought process, sharing the resources you are utilizing, and striving to serve the community well while keeping staff safe.

Top
Site Feedback