Nebraska Air National Guardsmen collecting samples in Grand Island.
Grand Island (in Hall County), Nebraska is a COVID hotspot with the number of cases exceeding those in Douglas County (Omaha).Over 571,000 people live in Douglas and over 61,000 live in Hall county. On a per capita basis, Hall has ten times as many novel coronavirus cases. Grand Island is home to a massive JBS USA meat packing plant which employs over 3,600 people. JBS USA is the American subsidiary of the world’s largest processor of fresh beef and pork owned by a Brazilian corporation.
JBS has closed two of its seven US meat processing plants - in Pennsylvania and in Colorado due to employees testing positive. In the Greeley, Co plant 43 employees tested positive for the virus. Of that number, 14 have been hospitalized and two workers have died. For now the Nebraska plant remains open. Grand Island is home also to a number of other large production plants where employees work closely together. While small businesses and restaurants were ordered closed, food processing plants are deemed essential businesses and remain open unless closed by the company.
The National Guard is doing much of the testing and data shows that 35% of those tested in Grand Island have the virus. The statewide average is 7.65%.
The county health administrator emphasized how quickly the virus has spread in her community, saying that the infection rate is probably much higher than 35%. She said:
“Because we have community spread of the virus, our assumption is it is actually everywhere we are. It will be in places of employment, in places of recreation, in places of shopping, all places.”
Forty workers or residents at nine long-term care facilities or home health agencies in Hall County have also tested positive for the novel coronavirus, which had its first confirmed case on March 26th.
St. Francis, the Grand Island hospital, have had enough time to erect a negative-pressure respiratory care unit in a tent outside the emergency room and could add 28 beds, expanding to a capacity of 157 beds, to care for additional patients when the hospital no longer has available beds.
At a press briefing Wednesday, the hospital administrator said three people at St. Francis were on ventilators for breathing support for the coronavirus one week ago. That number has now risen to 17, including all those in their ICU. At least seven COVID-19 patients this week have been transferred to other hospitals, including ones in Omaha.
Health officials hope that the peak will be in a week or two, but the prevalence of the virus and the large percentage of the local population that works in close contact with each other and the community spread to nursing homes, home healthcare facilities and other businesses make predictions difficult.
Thirty percent of Grand Island's residents are immigrants, attracted to processing jobs which many Americans will not do. In Feb, Nebraska's unemployment rate was 2.9%.
The National Guard members testing above are part of the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive Enhanced Response Force Package (CERFP) team.
