Omaha Health Officials Pleased With State's Compliance, Caution Rural Areas

Public health officials in Nebraska are generally giving residents high marks for steps being taken to voluntary efforts to keep people indoors and at a safe distance when out in public.

Latest news & resources: netNebraska.org/coronavirus

Dr. Adi Pour, the Director of Public Health in Douglas County, told reporters Sunday she felt good about how well the state's largest metropolitan area heeded the call to keep your distance in the city.

"It is phenomenal," Dr. Pour said at a Sunday media briefing in Omaha. "I have driven around (Douglas County). We see the compliance is good in this community."

Omaha was a quiet place over the weekend. Most stores remained closed. Traffic all but disappeared. Pour said she is "happy with that."

Acknowledging closing businesses and disrupting family life is enormous sacrifice, Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert said thank you to the city's residents. She told reporters she wants holding back the virus to remain the top priority.

"What we are doing right now is, we think, working, and we don't see any further restrictions" limiting movement in the city for now.

Omaha's experience differs sharply so far from other mid-size and large city's where 'stay at home orders' significantly restricted movement. In the past few days, Denver joined Kansas City and its suburbs in implementing harsh measures to quell COVID-19 after voluntary efforts did not work.

As the number of cases in rural areas increases, public health officials across Nebraska say small towns appear to be taking it seriously, even when some residents presume there little noticeable local impact.

"It's really hard to get people excited about this when they haven't seen any action,"

Chuck Cone, the director of the Loup Basin Public Health Department, told NET News. Cone's district, headquartered in Burwell, is in the heart of ranching country.

He is aware "a few" cattle auctions in the area have not canceled their sales, attracting dozens of buyers and sellers, some from Colorado where the number of cases is edging towards 1,000. Cone added that he was aware that "some of the largest markets canceled their sales."

The counties served by the Southwest Nebraska Public Health Department wrap around the Colorado border.

Director Myra Storey was aware large auctions in McCook canceled recently.

For those who decide to hold a sale, Storey advised, since restrictions on businesses are voluntary, "if they're outside and they're practicing the six feet away from each other, I don't see a problem with that."

For those in the livestock auction trade, "it's a lot of money invested in advertising and having these things go," said Cone. "They're doing the best they can, and we're just asking everybody to use as much common sense as they can."

Keeping people separated remains the key to stopping the spread of the virus. Dr. Jeffrey Gold, chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, cautioned the state's rural residents they must take the threat of the virus seriously. He told reporters, "it's really essential that not just the urban communities, but the rural communities respect the social distancing."

"Our farmers and ranchers have to go into town, and they have to do some shopping," Gold observed. "They have crews that they work with, and those crews travel from location to location ...There's no level of protection or immunity that goes with this, whether you're in rural or urban communities."

Gold thinks Nebraska could have a chance to avoid swamping the state's urban and rural hospitals with COVID-19 cases, but only if people keep their distance and the infection rate remains manageable.

"I think that there's a reasonable chance that among and between the hospital systems of our state, our critical access hospitals, community hospitals, and others, that we can handle this."

Dr. Gold added a note of caution:

"Just watching the numbers bubble up, I would be kidding you if I told you I thought that was guaranteed in any way."

Latest news & resources: netNebraska.org/coronavirus