I'm Dr Shannon Dowler , chief medical
officer for North Carolina . Medicaid
and the vulnerable population were
extreme leader for the Department of
Health and Human Services in the Cove
in response . So we got a call from one
of our community health center partners
on Friday evening saying that they had
noticed an increase in cases related to
the plant workers in their community
that they serve . And so as we dug into
the numbers , we saw that in fact , we
were starting to see a trend and a
rising cases . So we wanted to partner
with a local community to make sure
that we did reasonable testing and
surveillance to get ahead of this so
that we can plan for where it might be
traveling to next . So what we have is
a consortium essentially that's come
together on the ground to take care of
this population and make sure that
we're getting testing out the patients
who might not otherwise have a medical
home or know where to go for testing .
And so it's a combination of a local
federally qualified health center ,
Piedmont Health Services , the local
Health Department emergency management
services , a couple of us from the
state or here , as well as our support
from the North Carolina National Guard .
My name is Lieutenant Colonel Bradley
Merit , with the 42nd still 14 . I am
the commander of the unit today . We're
here in Chatham , counting with
Carolina . We're supporting a drive
thru and welcome Cove in 19 testing
facility . We're here supporting the
Chatham County Emergency Management ,
the Department of Health and Human
Services , the chicken processing plant
and also the team . I help services .
We've been able to provide a lot of
support to them . Soon as we walked in ,
they grade us . They say , Hey , we're
glad you're here . What can you do to
help us ? And we were able to provide
all of our equipment , all of our
capabilities , and they were just
really happy to have .
It's been great toe have the
partnership with the guard because we
can come together as a community and
say what we need but mobilizing this
quickly . You know , generally speaking ,
when you do an outreach of the size
something for this many people , you
might spend weeks or even a month
planning for it . But we don't have the
luxury of time , right now , and so the
guard was able to sort of swoop in and
help us with the logistics . So we knew
that there were some pieces of it we
would own and take care of it , and
then other pieces that the guard would
take care of for , you know , it's been
a really smooth , streamlined process .
It has been bad weather , so it's been
rainy and cold and windy . So we hope
the weather clears . More folks will
feel comfortable coming out .