Pinal Today

As the Pinal County Board of Supervisors looks into ways businesses can safely reopen, they’re being told by the county public health director not to move too soon.

Dr. Shauna McIsaac, the Pinal County Public Health director, said restrictions should not ease until the community has had a reduction in COVID-19 cases for 14 days. They also need testing and monitoring plus hospitals in a position to treat all patients to follow guidelines issued through the White House.

As of midday April 28, the county had 359 confirmed coronavirus cases and nine deaths.

Supervisor Todd House said waiting for 14 straight days of improvement seems like a long time, and they're still increasing. He said he wants to get things opened up faster than later, Pinal Central reported.

House asked McIsaac if this meant that the county was 16 days away from the next phase.

She said the 14 days are important because effects from changes made today will not be seen for 14 days because of the infectious period. Quick action may be good, but it could backfire, leading to more cases and putting the county back to where it is now.

“We do not anticipate returning to normal until we have a vaccine and have achieved herd immunity,” she said, according to Pinal Central. 

When enough people have been vaccinated or recovered from an infection, that creates a “herd immunity” which doesn’t create opportunities for the infection to spread far.

But Pinal County Economic Development Manager Tim Kanavel told the board some local businesses can’t hold out much longer, and many are already closing permanently.

“For every two weeks this lasts, the percentage of (business) failures goes higher and higher. We need to get this economy back on the road as quick as we can,” Kanavel said, Pinal Central reported.

Chairman Anthony Smith asked county officials in public health, emergency management and economic development to suggest how the county could speed economic recovery while still following public health guidelines.

House said he hears from four or five small businesses a week who tell him they’re done. He wants the county to offer as much help as possible.

To provide that help, Supervisor Mike Goodman wanted to know if the county had an ombudsman to help businesses who don’t know where to start looking for help. Pinal County Workforce Development is working on setting up an assistance center, its director, Joel Millman, said. The center would connect local businesses to volunteer experts to help them.

Pinal Works, a new county webpage, offers a resource library for resident and businesses under economic hardship, Aaron Moon, the organization’s deputy director, said, Pinal Central reported.

Reopening and still meeting federal guidelines will be tough in the current situation. Like the rest of Arizona, Pinal County lacks tests. Even some symptomatic individuals were unable to find tests.

The county also lacked personal protective equipment, though a state-ordered shipment of PPE might help solve that.

McIsaac couldn’t tell Smith if the coronavirus would be like the flu in following the seasons.

“I don’t know if there’s a lot of hope that we would actually see a decrease through our summer,” McIsaac said, according to Pinal Central.

Hearing that, supervisor Steve Miller said the coronavirus will be something public officials will respond to for years.

McIsaacs held out some hope.

“I think it will be like many of the other infectious diseases that we have vaccinations for,” she said, Pinal Central reported. “Once we have a vaccination for it and people routinely take that vaccination, I think we can look forward to it not being front and center in our lives after that point.”

Economic development didn’t slow down with the coronavirus, Kanavel said. Lucid Motors continues to build its plant and a lot of houses are being built. Hospitality took a hit, which was expected.

“But the foundation of our county, our manufacturing, that’s still in place. That’s going forward,” he said, according to Pinal Central.

Nationwide layoffs affected Hexcel. County unemployment rose from 4.7% to 7%, he said.

He said Hexcel laid off some people, but that was a nationwide situation for the company. County unemployment is perhaps 7%, up from 4.7% before the outbreak. Kanavel said his guess is that many who filed for unemployment here actually lost their jobs in other counties.

“We’re going to have a fairly skilled and available workforce when this is all over,” Kanavel said, Pinal Central reported.

Some of the people who worked in Phoenix may find good jobs in Pinal County.

“That’s going to help us with retail leakage and some of the other things we deal with because these people leave the county every day,” he said, according to Pinal Central.

Kanavel and Millman said with so much information, the county needs a data analyst to better explain what it means so county officials know the best places to invest time and resources.