County hopeful it is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel

by April Scheinoha
Reporter

Kayla Jore, director of Inter-County Nursing Service, was optimistic while describing the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in Pennington County. Jore spoke at the Pennington County Board meeting Tuesday, March 23.

Cases surged in February and into March. The most recent surge in cases affected a lot more kids under the age of 10, Jore said. Due to that surge, Inter-County Nursing staffing changes and ramped-up vaccine administration, it was apparent that Inter-County Nursing needed assistance in contact tracing for both Pennington and Red Lake counties. As a result, the Minnesota Department of Health began handling those responsibilities Friday, March 13.

However, Jore is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Over the first three weeks in March, the number of new, active cases has gone down. “I’m very hopeful that it’s trending down,” she said.

The number of hospitalizations and deaths has improved as time has marched onward. Jore attributed that change to the types of treatments available.

On the date of the County Board meeting, there were no new cases of COVID-19. Since the pandemic began, there have been 1,464 cases of COVID-19 in Pennington County. As of Tuesday, 20 of those cases were considered to be active cases, and 10 county residents were hospitalized due to COVID-19. Eighteen county residents have died. The most recent death was someone in their 90s whose death was reported a week earlier.

Inter-County Nursing has given 1,502 vaccines as of Tuesday. That number includes both first and second doses of the vaccine. Within days of the County Board meeting, Jore anticipated that Inter-County Nursing would administer another 200 doses of vaccine as part of a vaccine clinic at its office and Arctic Cat.

Inter-County Nursing is providing two-dose COVID-19 vaccines to individuals, not the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Hospitals, clinics and pharmacies are administering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Both Arctic Cat and Digi-Key are considered to be manufacturers as part of the COVID-19 vaccine guidance. Vaccinations are given on a priority basis established by Arctic Cat.

Inter-County Nursing is working closely with Digi-Key and its on-site health clinic. That clinic is administering vaccines to employees. Jore reported that Digi-Key has already vaccinated employees who are over the age of 65. Vaccinations are administered on a priority basis depending upon where the employees work in the business.

Commissioner Darryl Tveitbakk notified County Board that Pennington County will receive $2.7 million in federal stimulus money. Tveitbakk, who has spoken with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, was informed that half would be provided in the next six weeks and the second half would be provided within the next year-and-a-half. After speaking with Klobuchar, he believed that county leaders would have more flexibility in how it uses the funding. Tveitbakk said he would like to use the funding for larger mitigation and economic development activities.

So far, Pennington County has awarded $1,422,584.24 in grants to 89 small businesses and 17 nonprofit organizations affected by the pandemic. Those entities received funding through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. Pennington County also used an additional $479,665.62 for public health and county mitigation out of the CARES Act funding it had received. The federal government had provided most of that funding to the county. The remainder was CARES Act funding provided to North, Rocksbury and Smiley townships, and the City of Thief River Falls. Those government groups were required to spend the funding or provide it to the county.

As part of a separate state program for COVID-19 relief, Pennington County also awarded $276,221 in grants to 16 small businesses.

Commissioner Bruce Lawrence thanked the county committee tasked with reviewing the grant applications and distributing the funds. “I know a lot of businesses are happy with the results,” he said.