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County turns to local suppliers for PPE orders

Lead Summary
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By
Lori Sorenson

Rock County Emergency Management Director Kyle Oldre has been coordinating efforts to secure personal protective equipment for local health care workers and others on the front line of coronavirus prevention.
     Because items like masks, gowns, face shields and hand sanitizer are in short supply, he’s turning to creative local manufacturers, like Fey Industries in Edgerton, to source inventory.
     Sheri Stratton, Luverne, has worked at the Edgerton company for seven years. Until two weeks ago she was making screwdrivers with custom name imprints for companies and private parties.
     Now she’s working with a team to make heavy duty protective hospital gowns — the kind with thumbholes to provide full coverage to a gloved hand made from vinyl that can be decontaminated, rinsed and reused.
     “You hear every day that there’s more cases, so you feel like you have to stay at it,” Stratton said about a renewed purpose for her work. “It makes you feel like you’re really needed by whomever they ship them out to.”
     She said she and her team have streamline processes to make better gowns and make them more efficiently. “We made 1,000 gowns today,” she said Monday. “We’ve done 10,000 since last Monday.”
     According to company president Mike Fey, one-third of the Fey workforce was laid off last month when the economy tanked, but more than half of them have been hired back to help fill orders for personal protective equipment like the gowns, face shields and other new products.
     “It’s been a rollercoaster these past few weeks,” he said Monday. “It’s just crazy how many people are needing these supplies … I just sent 1,000 plastic face shields to Colorado with next-day air. Usually freight expense is a big concern, but they need them right away.”
     In Rock County, Oldre and other local leaders are hoping to avoid last-minute equipment shortages.
That’s meant dozens of conference calls and online meetings with state and regional health and emergency response personnel, in addition to regular discussions with local leaders in schools, hospitals, law enforcement, fire departments, city governments and more.
“We’re all in this together,” Oldre said. “For now we’re making sure the right equipment gets to key players when they need it to keep them safe.”
While state and federal offices continue to ration supplies to local agencies, the Rock County Courthouse has become a receiving area for supplies that OIdre then distributes locally.
“It’s just easier for me to call these guys directly,” he said. “And they’ve all been great to work with.”
As supplies arrive, the courthouse has become a shipping and receiving area for PPEs. On Thursday county employees Gary Kurtz and Nathan Meyer commandeered the break room table to transfer bulk sanitizer from Century Farms Distillery in Spencer, Iowa, into hundreds of 8-ounce flip-top containers from Sailor Plastics in Adrian.
The bottles are then distributed in the community where they’re needed.
The goal is to have enough protective equipment distributed throughout the community to protect the people who need it most, and that list is changing as information filters down from larger cities already under a surge of coronavirus patients.
The most urgent need is with hospitals, nursing homes, fire departments and first responders, but others, such as funeral home directors, bus drivers and food delivery workers, are now advised to wear protection.
“These are all key players and we need to keep them healthy,” Oldre said. “I’m getting requests for masks from people who don’t normally need them, and as we go forward, the standards for PPE continue to get higher. This is a different way that we’re having to do business.”
Despite the fact that Rock County has yet to report its first confirmed case of coronavirus, Oldre said there’s urgency to his work, especially considering the community spread is assumed to be underway and a surge of cases is expected to peak in southwest Minnesota within a month.
Oldre’s efforts now are focused on having the right supplies on hand to prevent the rapid spread of the virus.
“We’re burning through equipment now,” he said. “We have to continue to bring supply in to meet that need and keep people safe.”
Equipment, though, is only part of the battle. He said the most important responsibility falls on the shoulders of residents to “flatten the curve” so that medical professionals can accommodate critical cases in manageable numbers.
“It’s up to the people of Rock County,” Oldre said.  “Are we following the guidelines to shelter in place and wash our hands to avoid all the big numbers at once.”
The longer it takes for cases to surge locally, he said, the more time the community will have to prepare for it.
“We know it’s coming, but if we can push it far enough down the road to let the really smart people figure it out,” Oldre said. “For every week we push it out, it’s another week of production for the equipment we need.”

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