HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – The Hill County Health Board met virtually on Friday afternoon to provide their weekly COVID-19 update.
Health Officer Kim Larson says her Department will be sharing updated quarantine guidelines in the coming days based on the updated CDC recommendations.
“Basically, if you are a contact to a case and you have no symptoms and you have a negative test within 48 hours of day 7, then you are only quarantined for 7 days. If you are a contact to a positive and you have no symptoms and you refuse to test, you are quarantined for 10 days. If you are symptomatic or a household contact to a case, then you are quarantined for 14 days. We are putting together some guidance on that for our community and for our partners that we work with so that it is as clear as possible.”
Larson says her Department remains in communication with the state on COVID vaccine distribution. Around 10,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine are expected to arrive in Montana over the week of December 13th, while around 20,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine are expected to arrive on December 22nd. Overall, Montana expects to receive 60,000 doses of the first phase of the two-shot vaccines by the end of the year. The second phase of the vaccine needs to be taken three weeks after the first shot, and will be sent later.
The Hill County Health Department has been approved as a location to administer the vaccines. The first allocations will be reserved for health care workers and long term care facility residents and staff.
Sanitarian Inspections
Sanitarian Will Lorett says they inspected 12 businesses this week, some based on tips and others at random, and found two of them in non-compliance of the Governor’s directives.
“We are doing a three strike system where we visit, give them an informational packet that I’ve printed up. Then, if they are not in compliance at that point, we come back two days later and see what we can do. If they are in compliance at that point, we let the visits stop. If they are still not in compliance, we make another visit two days later or whatever works with the weekend. At that point if they are not in compliance, we go to Kim (Larson) and have her sign an order to shut the business down. At that point, they can come to us with a plan to reopen to be within the Governor’s directives. That plan has to be approved by Kim, the Health Officer, and then they reopen.”
The Sanitarians made a return visit to the two non-compliant businesses later in the week and found them to be in compliance.
