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 Area residents used snowblowers, snow plows and snow shovels to dig out from a winter storm that hit late Friday and Saturday. Another storm is to hit tonight. Staff photo/William Laney MIKE BURKHOLDER
and WILLIAM LANEY
Staff Writers
A winter snow storm, which dumped as much as 3 feet in the Washington, D.C. area, hit the area with as much as 9 inches of snow in Wapakoneta and some areas of Auglaize County.
The snowfall came with high winds which created drifts as tall as 4 feet causing hazards for the city and county roadways.
Wapakoneta weather observer Dan Dietz calculated 8.5 inches of snow fell in Wapakoneta Friday and Saturday. The National Weather Service is predicting as much as 10 more inches starting with a light snow at midnight with most of the snow falling throughout the day Tuesday before tapering off early Wednesday morning.
Wapakoneta Public Works Superintendent Meril Simpson said city crews hit the roads at 4 a.m. Saturday, but the high winds hampered their effforts.
Crews worked until 4:15 p.m.. Saturday and returned Sunday and worked from 7 a.m. to 1p.m. before heading back out early this morning.
“We are attempting to clear the roadways the best we can and we are dumping more salt and grit this time,” Simpson said this morning. “The temperature is still too cold for the salt to work, but if we get enough sun it may warm it up enough to help.”
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Friday, 20 November 2009 |
By WILLIAM LANEY
Managing Editor
A U.S. Congressman wants to add a public policy arrow to the national health care quiver.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, of Ohio, co-sponsored legislation this week to guarantee paid sick days for those who are infected by the H1N1 as part of a larger overall national policy to combat the spread of the virus.
Brown, who held a media teleconference Thursday, said he talked with Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Dr. Alvin Jackson, director of the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) regarding the best ways to curb the spread of the virus, to educate Ohioans and to better distribute the H1N1 vaccine.
“We are all aware of the challenges involved with the spread of H1N1 and the concerns that we read about the concerns regardng the distribution of the vaccine,” Brown said. “We recognize that combatting such a quickly spreading virus requires close coordination between state and federal governments.
“The administration, ODH and CDC have been working around the clock to get the vaccine out as quickly as possible,” he said.
Frieden said 52 million doses of the vaccine are now available for ordering. Ohio has received 1.6 million doses of the H1N1 vaccine and is projected to receive a total of 6.9 million doses.
Population estimates for the state have the top priority group in Ohio at more than 5.4 million. Ohio’s overall population is approximately 11 million.
According to a ODH report issued Monday, Auglaize County has received 6,550 doses of the vaccine for the 6,283 people in the top priority group.
While Auglaize County has received the vaccine for certain percentage of its priority population, it does not mean that the priority population actually has received the vaccine only that the vaccine has been sent to the county.
According to the report, Allen, Hardin, Shelby and Van Wert counties have all received at least 100 percent of the number doses to vaccinate their priority population.
Jackson said Ohio’s influenza and H1N1 season this year peaked in mid-October, but he warned the season has peaks and valleys until May when the flu season ends. He noted influenza and H1N1 could peak again.
He credited the public health system in counties helping the state work toward its goal.
“From the smallest counties to the biggest cities and everywhere in between, local public health professionals have done an exemplary job providing H1N1 vaccine to the highest-risk Ohioans,” Jackson said. “Thanks to local, state and federal partners, H1N1 vaccine is getting to those who need it most.”
As of Nov. 17, ODH reported 2,547 flu-related hospitalizations in Ohio, with 30 H1N1-related deaths. Area deaths include a Van Wert County man who died from H1N1-related symptoms earlier this week and a Toledo woman died earlier this month after giving birth to twins.
Frieden said H1N1 is widespread and hitting more people now nationwide than influenza does at its peak.
“I think we are making progress,” Frieden said. “It has been a challenging season because of the amount of the disease, so if you look at the big picture we did not think we would have lots of people vaccinated until around Thanksgiving which is next week when we thought we would need a double dose.
“The good news in this whole vaccine story that a single dose for anyone 10 years old and above gets very rapid and a very high level of immunity,” he said. “The challenge is the vaccine is not growing as much as we wish in the manufacturers production facilities, but the vaccine supply is steadily growing.”
Brown, who co-sponsored the H1N1 bill with U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., is intended to slow the spread of H1N1 by encouraging workers who have H1N1 symptoms to follow health recommendation of staying home or make it easier for parents to care for children with H1N1.
“This legislation would reduce transmission in the work place by ensuring that employees would not be penalized for staying home when they or a family member exhibit symptoms of a contagious illness,” Brown said. “We know that fewer and fewer Americans have paid sick leave days available so people are for financial reasons are encouraged to stay at work and transmit this virus. This is a bad thing and contrary to good public health.”
The bill, which is being debated by members of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, would affect companies with 15 or more employees.
Brown understands the business groups oppose the measure saying it would be burdensome and expensive to employers.
“I understand that employers are under the gun now, they are squeezed and business is not going that well — employees are more stretched, employers are more stretched and stressed,” Brown said. “When you have workers who are less productive because they are sick and they are going to work to get paid then they are infecting others and making them less productive so that infects their business.
“I understand businesses do not like any kind of government mandate, they typically don’t,” he said. “Over the years, they have opposed workers’ compensation, unemployment compensation and Family Medical Leave Act and that is the nature of the system, but very often government has very good ideas of what we need to do to protect the public health.”
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Last Updated ( Monday, 23 November 2009 )
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