The City of Beaumont is fortunate to have a skilled leader in the Public Health Department like Sherry Ulmer. Her experience and her skills at working within the medical community are a valuable asset to Beaumont. The mission of the department is “Promote Healthy Lifestyles, Prevent Disease and Protect the Health of the Community.”

Covid-19 is changing quickly, and the medical community is dealing with this aspect minute by minute. Testing is increasing and, as a result, more people are being tested. About 10-15% of those being tested are symptomatic. At this time testing is also being done for those that are asymptomatic. The disease started escalating in March, and then became relatively flat with some downward trends until Memorial Day weekend. Now the community is seeing a resurgence, and we have experienced spikes in both June and July. All zip codes are impacted with 77705 being the highest, followed by 77706 and 77707: 47.7% are African-American, 22.2% white and 29.1% Hispanic.

It is the job of the health department to contact every person in the city who has contracted Covid-19 and discuss their illness and their symptoms, what they are doing to separate themselves now, where they traveled, where they have been in the last 48 hours, and any other events within the last two weeks. They also advise the patient to not leave home and not go to work. Presently, 100 calls are made each day. They speak to the patient directly unless hospitalized, and then they must rely on family members. The purpose is to notify others that they may have been in contact with the person who has the disease. The tracing and investigation are a tedious process and time consuming. This process is the same as the TB tracing and investigations of previous times.

Presently, the department does not receive information from private clinics concerning the number of persons who are testing negative. If someone does test positive, they should be separated from those who are not. Originally the period was 14 days, but now the isolation time is 10 days, and if the person is fever-free without medicine to assist during the last two days, they can begin the process of reuniting with family. If the person becomes increasingly ill, they should be taken to the emergency room for admittance to the hospital. People are recovering, but they may have lifestyle changes to make.

Club members had many questions and discussion points during this presentation which made members aware of the many things in our community that are happening with this disease. The working relationship of the medical community and the health department is excellent.

In a group work session with us while preparing for this talk, Ms. Ulmer made a statement that you, too, might find somewhat haunting.  She said, "This virus is a test of our humanity.  And, right now, we are not passing the test."    

The advice of Ms. Ulmer is stay at home if you are sick, wear a mask in public and distance yourself by 6 feet from others. There are treatments that are being tested and have shown some success. The pandemic is not over and the public needs to be vigilant to protect the entire community.