Westmoreland officials, Excela have plans in place for coronavirus

Westmoreland County is prepared for a potential coronavirus outbreak, officials said Tuesday.

Discussions with state health officials and emergency management personnel are ongoing about how to manage if and when cases of the virus arrive, Public Safety Director Roland Mertz said.

“We’re on it,” he said. “Every day we get reports and we’re reaching out with information to local emergency management coordinators. We’re not a panic state.”

Excela Health likewise is prepared to deal with any outbreak, said Dr. Carol J. Fox, senior vice president and chief medical officer of the Westmoreland County-based health system.

“Excela Health has an action plan in place should any patient meet criteria for COVID-19. Our providers are working as a team with internal, local, regional and national resources to evaluate possible cases to ensure everyone’s safety,” Fox said. “In addition to our standard infectious disease protocols, Excela Health is following Pennsylvania Department of Health and (U.S.) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and has instituted a number of measures to identify and screen patients with potential COVID-19.”

She said the health system adopted screening procedures for transmissible travel-related diseases several years ago in concert with the CDC.

” We have done this under the guidance of the CDC in order to help prevent the human-to-human spread of illnesses such as COVID-19 and others you may have heard of, such as Ebola and MERS,” Fox said.

She said protocols include the following questions:

• In the last 21 days, have you traveled to any foreign countries or have you been exposed to anyone who has traveled and is under investigation by the state Health Department for illness? If yes, which locations?

• Do you have a fever or any lower respiratory illness (severe productive cough, shortness of breath, chest tightness, wheezing)?

If anyone responds affirmatively to those questions, Excela staffers will immediately reach out to Infection Prevention and Control experts who work with the state health department and CDC.

“We want to emphasize that Excela Health does not make the decision to test a patient for COVID-19. Testing is only performed at this time at the discretion of the state health department or the CDC,” Fox said.

Mertz said he receives daily briefings from the state health department and this week his agency met with Excela officials to coordinate efforts about how a potential outbreak will be handled.

Plans also are being drawn up to keep county government open should a coronavirus outbreak occur, he said.

“We’re ready to step in, but hopefully everyone is taking precautionary efforts,” Mertz said.

The county has not issued any alerts. It republished on its Facebook page information from the American Red Cross about the virus that includes tips about how residents can reduce their risk of exposure.

“It’s the same message coming from the state and everywhere else,” Mertz said. “Wash your hands and sneeze into your sleeve.”

Rich Cholodofsky and Deb Erdley are Tribune-Review staff writers. Contact Rich at rcholodofsky@tribweb.com or Deb at derdley@tribweb.com.