Emergency Managers urge continued caution; EDA helping with small business financial assistance

On Thursday afternoon, April 23, County COVID-19 Emergency Management officials were joined by member of the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority for the fifth weekly briefing on the pandemic response here.

Gathered with County Board and Joint Emergency Management Team Chairman Walter Mabe and County COVID-19 Emergency Manager Rick Farrall were EDA Board Chairman Ed Daley, Vice-Chairman Jeff Browne, and Executive Director Doug Parsons. Only Daley and Browne joined Mabe at the table set up in the Warren County Government Center’s main Meeting Room, as social distancing parameters were given a little extra distance.

From left, the EDA’s Jeff Browne and Ed Daley listen as Chairman Walt Mabe opens the fifth weekly Emergency Management team briefing. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini – Royal Examiner Video/ Mark Williams – Royal Examiner Audio/Mike McCool

Mabe opened the meeting with an update on local emergency management guidelines. He urged citizens not to leave their homes unless necessary; to wear masks in public as all meeting participants present were upon entering the meeting room, though masks were downed while speaking; continue frequent handwashing and social distancing of approximately six feet when in public. He urged citizens to continue to monitor not only themselves but vulnerable neighbors and family members for COVID-19 symptoms and to contact your primary care physician or the Valley Health hospital system emergency room in the absence of a primary care physician, to help set up COVID-19 testing appointments.

A quick check of the Virginia Department of Health website indicated continued caution as a wise move as Virginia cases have nearly doubled in the past 10 days, from 5,747 on April 13 to 10,998 on April 23, with the Commonwealth’s death total over doubling in that period from 149 to 372.

Fortunately, no deaths have yet been reported in the six-jurisdiction Lord Fairfax Health District Warren County lies in, though reported cases have climbed from 129 to 234 in the past 10 days.

Confirmed Warren County cases climbed from 17 to 30 over the past 10 days, along with Winchester City going from 20 to 30; Frederick County from 66 to 87; Shenandoah County from 17 to 58; Page County from 6 to 22; and Clarke County from 3 to 7 cases.

EDA Executive Director Doug Parsons left, and County COVID-19 Emergency Manager Rick Farrall appears to be communicating by secret hand signals prior to the convening of Thursday’s emergency management briefing.

If those numbers seem reasonably mild, not so to our east and south. Since April 13, Harrisonburg has climbed from 87 cases to 346, with 8 fatalities now reported there; Rockingham County 49 to 163 cases with one fatality; Fairfax County from 1,164 cases to 2,362 with a total of 76 fatalities; Arlington County from 390 to 686 cases and 24 fatalities; Prince William County from 434 to 1,027 cases with one fatality; Loudoun County from 324 to 498 with 10 deaths total; Fauquier County from 28 to 64 cases with one death; and Alexandria from 235 to 512 cases and 14 deaths attributed to the COVID-19 Coronavirus.

Later Mabe lauded the Warren County Public School System’s continued provision of two meals a day to the county’s school-age children, even with schools being closed and education now being conducted virtually online, as are most local municipal and related meetings.

After he turned the meeting over to them, EDA Board Chairman Daley and Vice-Chairman Brown briefed the public on its work in helping small businesses, both during normal times and in these more challenging ones born of the COVID-19 emergency response-ordered closings and consequent employee layoffs.

As Daley listens, Mabe urges continued caution and observance of emergency management directives to keep the COVID-19 threat at bay in Warren County.

“We’re particularly interested in coordination and consolidation – how can we help other businesses move forward in the community; how can we help them connect the dots? To put things together we’re working with the Small Business Development Center over in Lord Fairfax and also the Chamber of Commerce and Town and the County,” Daley began.

Watch Daley and Browne detail what the EDA is doing and how your business may apply and benefit from those efforts, along with Chairman Mabe’s update on the Public School Free Lunch Program in this exclusive Royal Examiner video of Thursday’s approximate 10-minute briefing: