Most decisions coming before the Henry County Commissioners are not life-and-death matters. Suddenly, that’s not the case anymore.
During a Wednesday meeting conducted electronically via the Zoom video conferencing, Commissioners and health officials discussed a variety of coronavirus (COVID-19) issues and listened as area golf course owners pleaded with them to let their businesses remain open if certain precautions were followed.
The discussion came along with news that Henry County has recorded its first death due to the coronavirus. While expressing condolences for the life lost, local officials also heard golf course owners and others emphasize the death of some businesses may be imminent if they are forced to close or remain closed for much longer.
Recognizing the delicate balancing act in front of them, Commissioners made no further additions to its April 6 business restrictions.
“We must take care of Henry County,” Kim Cronk, president of the Commissioners, said. “This is a life-or- death decision on how we proceed. In my opinion, we must proceed slowly and work with our health department and our health board.”
While the Henry County Department of Health Board had recommended last week golf courses, motor sports parks and equestrian facilities be closed, Commissioners decided to wait on taking those actions until another video conferencing-style meeting could be held.
In advance of that 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 22 meeting, Commissioners want golf course owners and other businesses to submit “action plans” on how they can operate and not risk COVID-19 spread. Those action plans are to be submitted to the Commissioners and health department officials by end of the business day Monday.
Here’s more on Wednesday’s meeting.
Current numbers
Angela Cox, Henry County Health Department administrator, issued the following statistics about COVID-19’s impact here. She reported:
23 positive cases
2 hospitalized, one of whom died this week.
A breakdown of the cases by age group revealed:
20-29 – one female and four males
30-39 – one female
40-49 – three females
50-59 – four females and one male
60-69 – four females and three males
70-79 – one male and one female
Because of the mobile nature in our society, Cox said COVID-19 numbers by county are difficult to track.
“I may get a call from a different county that says ‘I have a patient in my hospital who just tested positive and they live in your county,’” Cox said. “It takes time for that bit of information to catch up to the computer database at the state department of health. Not everybody who lives in Henry County goes to the doctor in Henry County. It takes a while for the information to get back to us.”
Cox said she gets asked frequently about the number of COVID-19 tests administered here. She told Commissioners Henry County ranked fourth in the 13-county District 6 in the number of tests given. “We were just short of Madison County,” she said.
“Hopefully, that eases some people’s minds,” she said. “It’s not that we’re not testing. We are testing to our capacity. And our capacity has everything to do with the availability of materials and tests. It has nothing to do with our physicians and nurse practitioners not wanting to test people. It has nothing to do with our health department not wanting to test people.”
Cox expressed her deepest condolences to the family of Henry County’s first COVID-19 death this week. She said one question frequently asked of her is “Why all the fuss when local numbers appear to be so low?”
“I’ve been told that 23 cases out of approximately 47,000 individuals in our county, that’s .04 percent of our population, so what’s the big deal?” Cox relayed. “Even though it’s just one death, that is someone’s mom, aunt, grandmother or sister. So I can’t take the mindset, ‘It’s OK, we’ve only had one death.’ One is one too many in anything that we’re fighting.”
Golf courses
As the spring weather warms, prime time for golf enthusiasts is colliding with COVID-19 concerns. Local golf course owners appealed to Commissioners Wednesday not to shut them down and emphasized they were ready to put safeguards in place. Most already have.
John Smith, who owns several courses in Indiana and Ohio, including the popular Royal Hylands course near Knightstown, said the closure of golf facilities as recommended by the health board would sound a death knell for businesses that have been vibrant parts of the community for decades.
“We’ve cut a third of our normal tee times out,” Smith said. “We have no one coming into our clubhouse except for our employees. We’re cleaning and disinfecting carts, letting them set for at least 10 minutes between rounds. We’ve removed all chairs from our entrances. We’ve modified our cup so that no one has to touch the flag or the cup to remove the golf ball. We’ve removed all of our rakes, our ball washers, water stations. Our practice range is closed. We would do anything else you would like for us to do to comply.
“Delaware, Wayne, Hancock, Madison and Randolph counties all have courses up and operating with the restriction of one person per cart,” Smith continued. “We’re currently under a ‘walking only’ restriction which we are complying with. You know, it’s life or death for our business.”
Smith said Royal Hylands has become one of the top courses in Indiana and has been open for 45 years. Other safeguards implemented include paying mostly done online or via credit card, with a “40 percent reduction in cash.”
Jeff Sanders of Valley View Golf Course in Middletown, echoed Smith’s remarks. He said it was, in his view, easier to keep social distancing on a 167-acre golf course than most other places.
“We’ll do whatever it takes to make this work,” he said. “We agree with keeping people separated. Delaware County hasn’t had problems. It’s just common sense.”
Nathan Bowman, a member of Westwood Country Club, said a complete golf course closure is unreasonable and unnecessary, if precautions are taken.
“If you’re walking the golf course, you’re not touching anything that you haven’t brought in yourself,” Bowman said. “Delaware County is allowing one individual per cart, family member or not. They have the clubhouse completely closed down. They are disinfecting the carts after every round. You have to remain in your vehicle until the group just ahead of your tee time is on the first tee box. At that point, you can go to practice greens, chipping, warming up.”
Bowman stressed Commissioners could do more harm than good if they voted to completely close local courses.
“They won’t stop golfing,” he said of avid local players. “They’re going to travel to different counties and risk contracting the virus there, then bringing it back here.”
Local businessman Josh Estelle offered his opinion on the issue to Commissioners as well via an email.
“I realize as a business we need to survive but we have to take steps to limit the spread,” Estelle’s email said. “That being said, as someone who has not left the house for three weeks, someone who has been totally quarantined with my family, someone who believes social distancing is key, and a former long time health board member and president during H1N1, I do think it’s reasonable for courses to stay open and allow walking only if they strictly comply with the ordinance.”
Dr. Miller’s concerns
Dr. John Miller asked if it was possible for players to participate as pairs instead of foursomes.
“Pairs-only would definitely restrict play,” Smith of Royal Hyland’s said. “We currently allow foursomes, but walking only, no carts. Tee times have gone from every 8 to every 12-15 minutes to space people farther apart.
Miller also asked about congregating of golfers in the parking lot areas.
Smith said he had added one additional staff person to clean carts and monitor the parking lot. He said chairs had been removed from the entrance area.
Miller requested action plans from golf courses be submitted by end of the business day on Monday.
Commissioner Cronk said the input from golf course officials was valuable and urged a continuation of the dialogue.
“I think we allow our health department to work with our golf courses,” Cronk said. “If the health department feels their plans are safe, I feel comfortable they can work with them and we can leave the golf courses open. Next week, when we come back, if the health department feels the golf courses can go back to using carts again, that’s fine. We would like to see a presentation of their plan so we protect the health of everybody in our community.”
Other commissioner input
Both Commissioners Ed Tarantino and Ed Yanos agreed with leaving things as-is for now and hearing detailed plans at next Wednesday’s meeting.
“I would like to allow at our next meeting various businesses to make their case,” Tarantino said. “Until then, we leave things as they are under the previous ordinance that we’ve already passed.”
Aside from golf courses, Henry Community Health Infection Preventionist Brooke Cowan, RN, expressed concern about both the Henry County Saddle Club and the New Castle Motorsports Park, which bring in many people from other areas of the state and even out-of-state.
“These two bring so many people into the county,” she said. “I feel like that’s a little bit different because so many people from all parts of the country come to these events. I feel like that needs to be looked at a little differently than the golf courses.”
“I understand that Brooke,” Commissioner Ed Yanos said. “But I also understand they’re within a half mile of basically three truck stops that are basically bringing in people from all over the country as well. I’m not sure how we discriminate against a go-kart track and allow those truck stops to be spreading the infection to our people as well.”
“At the go-kart track, people congregate,” Cowan replied. “People are working together whereas truck drivers are in their separate truck stalls,” Cowan said.
“I guess the track will have to present a plan on how they will keep that congregating from happening,” Yanos said.
Social distancing needs to continue
Cowan said no matter what business decisions are made, everyone needs to continue practicing social distancing everywhere they go.
“From our perspective, we’re not trying to make decisions based on business, but on public health matters. It’s not personal,” Cowan said. “We’re just trying to keep that death, that sickness from happening to someone’s mom or dad or grandma or grandpa. Even with the most appropriate of PPE (personal protective equipment), sometimes you can’t protect yourself. I just want to reiterate the importance of continuing social distancing. It is of the utmost importance.”
A model for the future?
Henry County Council President Susan Huhn indicated the golf course discussion could literally drive home how other businesses reopen amid COVID-19.
“I think we could use this as an example of how we start reopening businesses moving forward,” Huhn said. “We would want commerce to continue as normal if it’s not increasing risk to the citizens of the county. And so maybe this could be used as an opportunity for them to present to the health department what they’ve going to do ...maybe it could be used as a model. It looks like the (golf course) risk is going to be pretty controlled, which I find encouraging.”