Late Disclosure

[XLFD]

At the October 26th Ludington City Council meeting, the City's lack of disclosing details about a councilor's daughter's benefitting financially from a vote by her father had to be exposed by a concerned member of the public.  It turns out they were sitting on another secret, a potentially deadly secret.

On Tuesday at 2:30 PM, the Facebook page of WMOM broke a story regarding the city and Covid-19:

"As the City of Ludington continues to keep community members informed of any Covid-19 positive cases this just in from City Manager Mitch Foster. "Over the weekend, we were notified of a positive test result for one of our police officers as well as we were informed that four other employees were in direct contact with a COVID-19 positive person. All of the impacted employees have been placed on quarantine and will be following the Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines as well as work with District #10 Health Department."

A half hour later, the MCP added an article which clarified that this was passed along by a press release from the city manager sent out Tuesday.  The COLDNews ran with the story on Wednesday's paper, the police officer has yet to be named.

I attended the in-person meeting held on Monday night, the evening before the press release, a day or two after the LPD officer tested positive.  I was sitting a little over 6 feet from the city manager and about 20 feet from the police chief, other members of the public were present.  And even though a councilor brought up the issue of the dangers of having public meetings with increasing cases of coronavirus, and four of her peers agreed with the assessment, nobody brought up the fact that there were any active cases among city officials and employees, including one from LPD, part of the city hall building.

The press release implied that the City had taken steps to stop the spread among themselves, but stated that all of this was known 'over the weekend'.  I asked the city manager via E-mail why this information wasn't divulged sooner, like before the public meeting, since I doubt that even the councilors knew of the problem.  He replied:

"... the quarantines were not determined fully until late Monday so to disclose something without knowing all of the relevant facts would have been irresponsible in my mind. I had to wait until we knew how many, next steps, and any other impact it may have had prior to notification. Does this make sense?"

I don't believe it does make sense.  The behavior of fires in their development graph appears much like that of an epidemic graph (deaths/cases vs. time) with a bell-shaped curve when heat release is plotted against time:

A fire can be checked a lot more easily if caught in the incipient phase (think of a smoldering cigarette in a garbage bin) than it can be during its flashover/fully developed phase, this also applies to viral epidemics.  Time is important in getting the information out, and most people would forgive the City lacking definite numbers of exposed employees on Sunday, rather than waiting at least two days to do so and invite the public in to an in-person meeting in the interim.  

At least one (the unidentified officer) undoubtedly spent time at the city hall complex, one or more of the other four may have been full-time city hall employees.  This could have made city hall a breeding ground for Covid-19 cases as some studies indicate that air circulation units can act as 'super spreaders' even when masks and social distancing procedures are in place.  

I and several other members of the public including city councilors, were exposed to undisclosed risks on Monday night.  I was sitting within twenty feet of the chief, the CM, and the city clerk-- three people who worked a full shift or more at city hall on Friday and Monday-- and they could easily have been in the incipient phase of their infection by contact or through ventilation.

Having suffered and recovered from Covid-19 myself, my fears are more for the older councilors, mayor, videographer, and older citizen spectators in attendance.  They made an assessment of risks to attend the meeting, but they were not given the additional information about the potential risks they faced that night.  

Like Councilor Joe Lenius' failure to disclose his daughter's involvement with a grant extension he was approving by vote, this failure to disclose should be considered unacceptable.

[Freedom Seeker]

Tough call. It's like "damned if you do damned if you don't." I'm not pro,-Whitmer, don't like a lot of her executive orders, and especially after time allowed without senate input, but I feel it was initially a tough decision for her, and better to err on the safe side (for a reasonable time).

Can't believe Mitch made the decision on his own not to cancel Monday's meeting in light of Covid among staff. Who has the authority to cancel Council meetings?  Now with this criticism they may likely err on the safe side and go back to Zoom.  You just never know who is frightenly vulnerable until they get it.  That's the scary part.

[XLFD]

If you recall back in April, I chided the Manistee police chief (and their corrupt city manager) for not disclosing names of the multiple officers in his department that either had tested positive or were quarantined for prolonged exposures.  Disclosure of the names of the officers is not a violation of HIPAA during an epidemic, and there really should be measures taken by legislators to make it a rule for departments to list their officers who are afflicted and those who are quarantined.  

The main rationale is simple.  When the LPD says one of their officers have contracted the communicable affliction, every person who has made a contact with one or more LPDers in the last two weeks become panicked that the officer they met was the one with the affliction, when there is actually about a 1 in 16 chance it was the one.  The LPD is, of course, aware of the officer, but why should they keep the secret from the public they supposedly serve?  There are 15X more anxious people who don't know whether that friendly officer they had intervene  in their domestic problem was a potential spreader. 

If the name is disclosed, the officer will not only receive many hopes and prayers, but will also be somebody the vulnerable members of the public can call a month in the future since they would be safe.  This is what has happened in other areas its been tried.  

I do not totally believe the powers of the COL made the wrong move by not calling off the in-person meeting.  I have not enough data to say whether there was much danger; if the four employees were from the DPW for instance and the LPD officer had limited time at the department, the risk would have been minimal.  

But this should have been divulged to all so they could do their own risk assessment as to whether to attend, particularly the councilors, several in that risky post-retirement group.  BTW, the Manistee police chief back in April was LPD Chief Tim Kozal if you hadn't checked the link.  

[Willy]

Sorry X but it appears you are feeding into this Covid hysteria. The City Manager report states "Over the weekend, we were notified of a positive test result for one of our police officers as well as we were informed that four other employees were in direct contact with a COVID-19 positive person. All of the impacted employees have been placed on quarantine and will be following the Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines as well as work with District #10 Health Department

This is getting out of hand. The health dept. wants healthy people quarantined for 14 days just for being around a person who tested positive. Don't people realize this is the essence of Government control. Don't buy into this nonsense. A friend of mine in another city tested positive but had no side effects. He felt fine. He was asked by the testing agency to name the people he came into contact with. He gave about 30 names.  All were contacted by the health dept and were told to quarantine themselves. We have to put an end to this or it will never end. The reason more cases are found is because of the extensive testing that is available.This is tyranny. Please recognize it. Your rights are being sliced and diced. The Government is controlling you with fear and they are shredding the Constitution.

You have a better chance of dying from falling down your stairs at home than from covid19. The only people who are truly in jeopardy from Covid are the elderly, yet the left is threatening another lock down.

[Freedom Seeker]

I pretty much agree, Willy. It's the vulnerable in our population that should be cautioned to mask up and socially distance. But I see the side of X saying that our local public should have been notified before the last Council meeting that we had four positive cases in city hall, if in fact they knew that positively.

A problem I see, and tilt slightly to the left with is that we just don't know completely how the virus affects some people or why yet, and not others, exactly. It's not just elderly, but obese, diabetic, those with breathing issues, COPD and heart issues. On rare occasion it takes the life of a seemingly healthy young person--whom whining liberal Judy Woodruff on PBS memorializes every week night, seemingly for her political slant to discredit the President who, imo, did a fast job to shut out foreign travel back in February to control the spread. Nothing would have pleased the dems because they are still pissed Hillary didn't win.