2021-02-10 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board February 10, 2021 down and we're looking at possible continuation of the governor's emergency proclamation and how that impacts the mayor's proclamation. The governor's proclamation expires on February 14, so we're on a short fuse going forward. So, that's one of the primary issues we'll be discussing today. And then, finally, our office is continuing to help with the registration for the VAMS that's the COVID vaccination for critical County employees. We've provided nearly 1,000 names, so far, County employees to the Department of Health. With that, we started the County employees vaccinations last week at the Civic. And there's always glitches when it comes to a situation like this—nobody's completely happy just through the timing of it all. I think our deputy corporation counsel can attest to the fact how we're able to work out problems through the registration system. He was impacted, but I think he reached a good resolution. So, other than that, that's pretty much the status of our office and our department. Happy to entertain any questions anybody may have. CHR. NAMAHOE: Chair NamahoeI do have a question and a comment. And so, the question is, I know with recent decisions being made on the state level or at least that's how it was portrayed in the news that might be what you guys are discussing today. What's Hawaii County's response to the state travel issue or the opening up the State and those issues? Because I know that on the County levels, we've done it piecemeal or we've—we're not necessarily doing it the same way between counties. So, I'm assuming that that's what you guys are probably talking about and what direction we're taking. And the second is more of a comment which is, I follow a dashboard on vaccinations. And if we remove Oahu out of the picture and just look at Hawaii County, Maui County, and Kauai counties, it has been—I've been dismayed that Maui has had more vaccinations than Hawaii County. We have four major hospitals, they have one. They have a smaller population. They're about 75 percent the size of Hawai `i County, if you look at population. And I know that sometimes we think, well, you have to split it up there's Molokai and there's Lanai. Now, I'm talking about the Island of Maui. Now, granted, they're having a tougher time getting their COVID cases under control but, still, if there's any way that that can be—if you have an audience that can address that, that's the issue that I'm seeing. We're not moving quick enough—CVS went in the news to say that they were going to start on Friday doing vaccinations. They said that one of their locations in Hilo will be addressed, but we are still trying to get through half of the 1B population—IA being essential healthcare workers, 1B being both kupuna over 75 as well as essential workers that are none medical—and that includes me, that includes you. We work with the public on some levels, we're required to be public facing on some levels. But we are not in the hospital systems, so we are co -mingled with the 75 -year-olds as 113. Page 5