Delaware County Council is putting in that work on coronavirus

The Delaware County Council people are kicking ass on this coronavirus issue. Not a day goes by where they haven’t made a significant contribution to addressing this pandemic head on. They’ve been issuing warnings, produce daily updates, populated extensive virus related content on their website, and made themselves available to the press.

https://www.delcopa.gov/ich/resources/coronavirus.html

As if all that isn’t enough, their biggest and most impressive success is getting the governor to approve a cooperative agreement that allows our neighbors over in Chester County to provide COVID-19 health services to us Delaware County residents.

As the Beatles were fond of saying…

You can feel his disease.
Come together, right now
Over me

Under the agreement, Chester County will provide us such services as

• COVID-19 expanded testing,
• COVID-19 case investigation and surveillance,
• COVID-19 quarantine designations,
• COVID-19 public health communication,
• Daily monitoring of emergency room volume and hospitals in Delaware County
• A public call center.

This is government at its best. You just don’t come up with these type of solutions in a vacuum. There is no policy manual or playbook to call on that gets you these type of results in this short amount of time. This partnership purely demonstrates what dedicated, concerned, smart, committed public servants do when the right team is in place.
Someone brought to my attention yesterday how they understood the need for our county to have its own health department but was tiring of hearing and reading what appears to be ‘politicking’ over the issue from our county council people in particular. Sure, the former administration avoided creating a county health department, but I don’t this these current council people are harping on that issue as much as the press is reporting about it, editorializing about it, and printing guest views about it. Hopefully we will read less about it because it’s definitely not important anymore now that our county council people delivered on a health department for Delaware County, albeit a temporary one that we’ll rent to get us through this crisis.

“Once we are through this, I will encourage all the residents of Delaware County to give a hug, a high five or a fist bump to the residents of Chester County,” Zidek said, in addition to thanking the county employees in Media.

Yo, Brian. Before we head down Rt. 1 to hug on Chester County folks, I encourage all the residents of Delaware County to at least send you guys a note of thanks, add y’all to our Christmas Cards lists, or spot you a brew down at Larimer Brewery before a Philadelphia Union soccer game.
Great Work!

At another juncture, expect to hear me rail on how these same type of agreements need to be made between failing school districts and good school districts within the county – but that’s not for another day.