2020-08-18 Fire Commission Regular Minutes

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Hawaii Fire Commission Regular Minutes August 18, 2020 Page 3 enforcement. They are also tasked with looking at requests for special events. They also help with setting up testing sites and providing support. Within the presumed positive case of a BC, they need to create a team to help support their employees to make sure they enough manpower to contact trace, notify, follow-up, do daily checks during quarantine, and also to do decontamination. Deputy Perreira further stated that they are in daily contact with the Department of Health and have learned of locations of positive cases on the island so they can identify what they need to do. If it's a business, basically, they will respond to that business. They will support with prevention, education, and setting up for testing. Kona Hospital was a big scare, and their team quickly responded. They tested almost 600 people in one day. They were able to identify and isolate very quickly. What could have become a cluster of 80-100 people was limited to only 2-3 personnel. They have been doing a lot of work, but it's important work for the health of our community. Commissioner Payesko asked about schools starting up. They are not being transparent about where cases are coming out in the schools. Deputy Perreira stated that schools are always on their radar. As a Hawaii island team, they wanted the Governor to push back his travel date further so that they could allow schools to open up. Initially, everything was travel related. The travel vs. community spread was about 80/20. Now, it's the opposite way. It's about 60% community spread vs. travel. It's important that they lock down travel and isolate each island so they can take care of themselves. It's definitely hurting our economy, but he thinks that's the sacrifice they have to make for a short period so they can identify, isolate, and mitigate this issue. If everybody follows these prevention practices -- handwashing, facemasks, staying distant, it's going to get better. With schools, it's hard because there's a lot of politics, and they try to stay out of it. The DOE gave each school choices. It's hard because there should be one standard, and everybody should follow that one standard. It's difficult for the teachers because they are trying to protect themselves. He has gotten numerous calls from numerous teachers about what they can do to protect themselves. The Task Force is working with different schools. It's a lot of up in the air and worrying. They're putting 15-20 kids in one room for a whole day. There will be some transmission if there's any virus in there. So, it's hard. They need to do their best to protect their community. Our Mayor is advocating hard to keep businesses open. In response to Commissioner Paleka's inquiry about the permitting process being held up, Deputy Perreira stated the Prevention Bureau is part of the permitting process and the review, but they are only one part of it. When it's held up by them, it's always because there are issues that need to be corrected. It's because they either are not meeting the code or they want a variance from the code, and so that's another process.