CROWN POINT — Keeping up with the coronavirus is exhausting the Lake County Health Department.
The Lake County Council learned Tuesday two of the department's five nurses recently resigned, and two more are off work, leaving just a single nurse on-duty to field more than 200 calls and emails a day relating to COVID-19.
Dr. Chandana Vavilala, Lake County's health officer, told the council her department is doing all it can to organize COVID-19 testing, perform supplementary contact tracing of infected individuals and help prepare schools to reopen amid the pandemic, alongside its usual tasks, including providing immunizations and conducting tuberculosis surveillance.
"We are doing our best," Vavilala said. "I'm having a lot of difficulty hiring people. We are definitely, very much short-staffed in the Lake County Health Department, especially in our nursing division."
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Vavilala anticipates the burden on the county health department will grow significantly as local schools reopen, since she expects the state will be unable to effectively trace the contacts of students infected by COVID-19 at school, and her department will have to do the work, as it did for all coronavirus infections in Lake County prior to the partial state takeover of contact tracing on May 11.
"We need staffing, we need extra help, like yesterday," Vavilala said.
Lake Council President Ted Bilski, D-Hobart, told Vavilala there is county, state and federal money available to fully staff the health department to combat COVID-19.
She observed, however, much of the money either is inadequate to hire people with the necessary skills and training, such as COVID-19 testers, or is being distributed too slowly to make a difference.
Vavilala said she's nevertheless working with the state to set up three additional, long-term COVID-19 testing sites in the county that will be open evenings and weekends, in place of the weekly pop-up testing sites partially funded by the state.
At the same time, Vavilala said she's concerned the state is signaling it soon will end support for personal protective equipment (PPE), such as masks, gloves and gowns, leaving the county on its own as it was at the beginning of the pandemic in March.
"They are saying we have to be self-reliant in purchasing the PPE that we provide for the local entities, maybe for nursing homes," Vavilala said.
The county health chief acknowledged there recently has been an increase in positive COVID-19 cases in Lake County.
But she also noted hospitalizations and intensive care capacity continue to be stable, and coronavirus deaths are declining.
"As we are in the process of gradually reopening the county, and we're seeing more people getting together outside — some following the safety precautions and some not — we are definitely seeing a little bit of an uptick in the numbers, which probably we'll continue to see in the next few days," Vavilala said.
"How much of an uptick it's going to be only time will tell, depending on the precautions that people will be taking."
To that end, Vavilala told the county council she will be issuing coronavirus recommendations, likely by the end of the week, for Lake County residents to follow to protect themselves and others from COVID-19.
Vavilala declined to say whether the recommendations will include a mandate that facial coverings be worn by all people in public places.
"I can't divulge exactly what all it would have," she said. "There will be recommendations for schools, there will be recommendations for restaurants, and there also will be recommendations for people who are going to be indoors in businesses who are unable to maintain social distancing."
Four Indiana counties — St. Joseph, Elkhart, LaGrange and Marion — mandate individuals wear masks in public, and some cities, including LaPorte, have imposed similar requirements on their residents and visitors.
However, despite being stylized as a mandate, Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill confirmed June 30 the Elkhart County order is unenforceable, and may only be used to emphasize the importance of wearing masks or other face coverings.

