FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
City Manager Jason Gage and Springfield-Greene County Health Department Director Clay Goddard shared with City Council Friday a draft guidance document called the Road to Recovery Plan to map out the area’s next phases in reopening the local economy. The individual components and phases of the plan are subject to change based on local and national COVID-19 data as well as by measures tracked on the Springfield-Greene County Health Department’s COVID-19 Recovery Dashboard.
The City is under a “Road to Recovery Order Phase 1A,” through the end of May, which eased restrictions on the previous “Stay-At-Home Order” that closed much of the community in order to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Efforts were largely successful in keeping virus case counts down in Springfield and Greene County and bought valuable time that allowed area hospitals and public health teams to scale operations in the event of widespread infection.
The goal of recovery is to reopen the community as quickly and safely as possible, while monitoring the spread of disease and taking action to keep the spread of disease to an acceptable level.
The Road to Recovery Plan is a draft document that serves as a framework for Mayor Ken McClure’s future reopening orders. The plan allows community members and organizations to have a firmer understanding of what recovery looks like, when the spread of the disease is controlled and healthcare, public health and testing capabilities are strong. Within this framework, community leaders will make decisions approximately every three weeks on whether the community is ready and prepared to take the step into the next phase or if it is prudent to remain in the current phase. Phases are fluid and based on dashboard indicators and state orders. To a large extent, the virus will dictate the timeline of recovery.
This dashboard covers five areas, including:
- detailed case information, including total and daily cases based on a person’s onset of symptoms and active, deceased and resolved cases.
- hospital capability, which is based on hospital staffing, supplies and space available to respond to COVID-19.
- public health capability, which is based on the capability to conduct epidemiological interviews and contact tracing, and risk pertaining to unmitigated community exposure for COVID-19.
- testing capability, which measures the estimated community testing capability for COVID-19. The index is based on the available testing and result turnaround time.
- regional data information, which measures the estimated public health capability and testing capability for surrounding counties.
The current order – Phase 1A – expires May 31. Mayor McClure is expected to announce a formal Road to Recovery Phase 2 order next week, however, which would replace the Phase 1A order.
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For more information, contact Cora Scott, City of Springfield Director of Public Information & Civic Engagement at 417-380-3352 or [email protected] or Kathryn Wall, Public Health Information Administrator at 417-874-1205 or email at [email protected].