“If you continue, Public Health will post the names of the violators on the Public Health website,” Cooper said at the daily afternoon COVID-19-related news conference with Mayor Nan Whaley and other city and county officials.
Cooper said his office has been made aware of the bars and restaurants that are ignoring the state order to close, but he declined to identify the “four or five” locations at the news conference.
“Our concern is that they are not taking it seriously,” he said of the bars and restaurants, noting that area law enforcement has been made aware of the offenders as well.
Whaley reinforced Cooper’s warning.
“This is a serious issue if we stop the economy of our restaurants and bars,” she said.
She also continued to implore residents to donate blood for emergencies and asked the public to check on family and relatives by telephone or other means.
“This is going to test us and test our resolve,” Whaley said. “This is a new kind of test for us.”
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A second major announcement made at the news conference was a call to all emergency medical services personnel in the region to preserve and conserve personal protective equipment -- gloves, face shields, masks, coveralls, gowns, goggles and the like -- they use daily.
“We have a critical need, immediately, to preserve and conserve our personal protective equipment,” said David Gerstner, a Dayton firefighter/paramedic and disaster relief coordinator for the regional Dayton Metropolitan Medical Response System.
He called the announcement a huge change of practice because the region -- Montgomery, Preble, Greene, Miami, Shelby, Champaign, Clark and Darke counties -- is in dire straits.
The usual practice for EMS personnel is to throw away personal protective equipment, also called PPE, each time such equipment is used. Now, the call is for EMS personnel to reuse their PPE.
“At this point, the question is not if we’re going to run out but when we’re going to run out,” Gerstner said.
The shortage includes the M95 respirator masks, which fit snugly to the face and are used in cases where aerosol-generating procedures occur, such as the placing of a throat tube to help a patient breathe.
Until today, all EMS personnel working an incident would wear the M95 or PPE just in case they were exposed, Gerstner said.
“We can’t do just-in-case anymore,” he said. Now, EMS personnel who are standing back or driving will no longer need a mask or wear PPE.
Gerstner said there is fear of re-contamination from the reuse of PPE and the M95 mask, but EMS crews are following guidance from the CDC.
“We will be taking some slightly elevated risks,” he said, “but the risks will be relatively small.”