(Courtesy of Madison County Health Dept.)

Draft regional work plan includes disease surveillance

Disease surveillance and infection control strategies are among the aspects of regional planning covered in the East East-West Gateway Council of Government’s (EWG) draft Fiscal Year 2021 Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP) for the Greater St. Louis area.

The UPWP describes each of EWG’s major programs and projects and the funding sources that the agency uses to support its planning initiatives.

The latest annual update of the plan is slated to take effect July 1. The EWG is accepting comments on the draft plan update through April 10, 2020.

The EWG is the federally recognized regional agency, changed with coordinating planning among the eight counties of the St. Louis area and reviewing federal grant applications by those counties.

The plan outlines the St. Louis area’s approach to factors, which under federal law, should be considered in metropolitan planning, including: economic vitality, safety, security, accessibility and mobility, environmental protection, energy conservation, quality of life, and the transportation/land use/development linkage, integration and connectivity, management and operations, system preservation.

As part of its programs to ensure regional security, EWG coordinates efforts to enhance healthcare capability to handle mass casualties and infectious disease outbreaks with sheltering equipment, medical supplies, decontamination equipment, and training.

Non-security functions in the document include traditional planning functions such as development of transportation corridors.

The proposed EWG 2021 work plan can be accessed online at https://tinyurl.com/UPWP2021.

Comment can be filed on the same webpage or submitted by mail to: FY 2021 UPWP Comments,

East-West Gateway Council of Governments, 1 S. Memorial Drive, Suite 1600, St. Louis, MO 63102.

PPE donations increase in wake of COVID-19

Donations of personal protective equipment (PPE) needed by healthcare workers to protect against infectious disease, have been increasing in the area.

The St. Clair County Emergency Management Agency is actively soliciting donations of:

• Masks, N-95, ear loop or surgical,
• Gowns, isolation or non-descript,
• Gloves, nitrile, sterile or surgical,
• Eye protection, face shields and goggles,
• Infection control kits,
• Hand Sanitizer – any size,
• Disinfectant Wipes ,any size, and
• Thermometers, forehead only

All items must be in the unopened manufacturer’s original packaging.

Among those donating is Stumpy’s Spirits & Distillery of Columbia, which recently converted production from whiskey to hand sanitizer.

In one of the largest PPE donations in the Prairie State last week, the Illinois Public Health Association announced it is making 30,000 disposable safety gloves available to healthcare providers statewide.

“It is my pleasure to announce this donation of much-needed personal protective equipment (PPE) to Illinois healthcare providers,” said Toni Corona, IPHA President and Public Health Administrator at the Madison County Health Department. “IPHA is delighted to support our colleagues on the frontline of this fight. Illinois healthcare providers are working tirelessly to battle this pandemic and this donation will assist them with their critical efforts!”

However, the gloves may be especially welcome in Metro East, given the area’s rapid growth in COVID-19 cases and a threat by the American Red Cross last week to withhold flood response personnel from riverside areas of Metro East unless adequate availability could be guaranteed.

These gloves will be distributed to frontline providers through IPHA’s partnership with the Illinois Emergency Management Agency (IEMA). For more information, please contact IPHA at 217-522-5687.

The village of  Shiloh has a burn ban to help reduce the potential of “unnecessary call outs” of volunteer firefighters in response to fires that might get out of control.  (Photo courtesy of village of Shiloh)

Art on Square cancelled

Belleville’s 19th annual Art on the Square has been canceled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The annual art festival, on the St. Clair County Courthouse Square, is often ranked among the top 10 art fairs in the nation and has been named the nation’s top art show by the Art Fair Source Book six times.

The art fair annually attracts 800 and 1,000 artists from across the nation.

This year’s fair had been scheduled for May 15-17.

The annual Scott Air Force Base Open House and Air Show – this year featuring the Air Force precision flying team, the Blue Angels – remains scheduled for May 30-31, according to posts on the base website.

Shiloh bans burning

The village of Shiloh is prohibiting all outdoor burning as part of its efforts to curb the COVID-19 epidemic.

Village officials hope the action will reduce calls to the O’Fallon Fire Department and Belleville East Side Volunteer Fire Department for controlled burns that have become unmanageable and “smoke in the area” investigations, according to a notice to residents.

While open burning is prohibited statewide under Illinois law, exceptions are provided for landscape waste, as well as prairie and ecological landscape burns, with some restrictions.

The Shiloh ban, in effect until further notice, now prohibits those fires within the village boundaries.

Waffle House test is ominous for Metro East

The Waffle House has temporarily closed about one fifth, or 365, of its 1,992 restaurants, in the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic.

That includes both of its Metro East locations: 505 Bluff Road in Collinsville, IL 62234 and 3244 W. Chain of Rocks Road in Granite City.

That is significant to financial industry analysts who have come to use the iconic American breakfast food chain — known for remaining open amid even the worst of conditions — as a barometer of crises from natural disasters to economic downturns.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) even uses an informal Waffle House Index to track how much an area was affected by adverse conditions.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) even relied on the informal Waffle House Index to track how much an area was affected by a disaster, including hurricanes.

“If you get there and the Waffle House is closed?” former FEMA administrator Craig Fugate told the Wall Street Journal, “That’s really bad.”