As announced during a combined press conference with council members from both Chester and Delaware counties, Delaware County has no health department but wants one.
Chester County Council Chairwoman Marian Moskowitz said during the press conference that Chester County’s Health Department would assist Delaware County in testing for and tracking possible cases of novel Coronavirus COVID-19.
Delaware County Council Chairman Brian Zidek said Delaware County has been relying on the state’s Health Department, adding that he didn’t know that a guard at the county prison had tested positive for COVID-19 until a reporter told him.
Zidek said DelCo’s efforts to understand what has been going on in the county without a health department have been challenging. “
At times it feels as if we’re wearing sunglasses in a dark room while trying to figure out what to do next,” he said.
Part of the reason is that Delaware County has needed to rely on the state to conduct tests for the virus. “We don’t know how many people have been tested. We don’t know how many people have been quarantined.”
And he added that the county is not given any information about where the people who have tested positive live.
“Not only are we unable to give our citizens information that they so desperately want, but we’re also not entirely clear about what we should be doing,” he said.
Zidek said there are daily conference calls among the counties and each county reports on the number of cases and what they’re doing about them. But Delaware County can only say it’s getting press releases from the state about the number of new cases. Again, though, “We don’t know where they are. We don’t know how many people are being tested. We don’t know who’s in quarantine. Our ability to respond rapidly is diminished.”
He said that all members of the Delaware County Council have campaigned on the need for a health department. After taking office, Council Vice Chairwoman Dr. Monica Taylor and Councilwoman Christine Reuther went to Harrisburg to start that process, meeting with officials from the state Department of Health and with others to learn what the process would be like, Zidek said.
“What we understand is that it’s an 18- to 24-month long process,” which includes numerous studies and reports — economic impact and feasibility studies — before the state gives the county the go-ahead to operate its own health department.
Understanding the length of the process, the county accepted the offer from Chester County to help during the current pandemic. The state gave its authorization for Chester to take jurisdiction for Delaware County’s needs Wednesday.
About Rich Schwartzman
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
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