Good morning,

Yesterday afternoon I had the opportunity to host a meeting with Jeff Zewe (CEO of Upper Allegheny Health Systems), Dr. William Mills (Chief Medical Officer of Upper Allegheny Health Systems), Bradford Fire Chief Eric Taylor, Bradford Police Chief Butch Bartlett, Assistant Police Chief Mike Ward and City Administrator Chris Lucco.

The team from UAHS shared some valuable information about what their hospitals are doing to help keep their patients and the community stay safe during this unprecedented event.

UAHS is still observing a shut down of visiting hours with very few and rare exceptions including visitors to patients who are receiving end of life care, having their workers wear masks when working with potential Corona patients and keeping the local media constantly in the loop. At this time, scheduled surgeries are to be uninterrupted.

The team also advised that the peak of this Coronavirus pandemic is still 3 weeks away.

Some of the biggest things that we as individual community members can do to stop or slow the spread of Coronavirus are the things that I and others have been telling you from the start: constantly wash your hands, disinfect tables, phones and computers, avoid touching your face and if you are feeling sick to stay home.

While the UAHS stated that there were no cases of Coronavirus in Cattaraugus or McKean Counties as of yesterday afternoon, if you think you have the symptoms of Coronavirus, please CALL your Doctor unless you are in really rough shape.

The main reason for calling your Doctor to be screened over the phone instead of showing up at a doctors office or ER is that if you don't have it, you don't want to risk getting it by showing up to a place where others may have it.

The BRMC and OGH websites both have excellent Frequently Asked Question sections that are available for reference.

A couple pieces of information from the UAHS that I feel should be passed along are that:

80% of the already small number of people who contract the Coronavirus have mild and almost unnoticeable symptoms

There are a significantly higher number of Influenza cases this year than there normally are. 14,000 people have died from the Flu in the United States alone this year while 7,000 have died from the Coronavirus in the entire world.

Please follow all CDC and legal requirements to do your part to put Coronavirus into our recent memories instead of our daily news. We can stop it's spread.

Thank you to both Mr. Zewe and Dr. Mills along with our emergency personnel leadership team and Mr. Chris Lucco.

Kindest Regards,
Mayor James A McDonald