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BERRIEN COUNTY — The Berrien County Board of Commissioners hosted its weekly meeting Thursday in a new format to accommodate social distancing measures.

In the wake of increasingly heavy mandates from the state to slow the spread of COVID-19, gatherings of more than 10 people are discouraged, and 6 feet is recommended be to be kept between individuals to lessen the chance of viral transmission. The commissioner meeting was hosted in a virtual Zoom video chat, which was live-streamed on YouTube. The format began with all board members present and proceeded from there in as close to a normal fashion as possible.

It was revealed when the forum was opened for public comments that viewers were likely experiencing around a 10-second delay from the meeting’s progress.

At the beginning of the meeting, Berrien County health officer Nicki Britten gave commissioners — and the 31 attendees joining virtually — an update on the county’s response to the COVID-19 emergency.

“We have 39 confirmed cases [of COVID-19], but we know that the confirmed cases are really only a reflection of our testing strategy,” Britten said.

The testing strategy for Berrien County has followed those of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Spectrum Lakeland’s guidance, which states that the tests, still in limited supply, are to be used on only seriously ill patients.

“We are doing contact tracing on all the positive cases,” Britten said. “Then any of their contacts who are symptomatic, we’re then doing contact tracing for them. We have over 700 people that have gone through this contact tracing. Most of them are getting daily phone calls during a 14-day period.”

Britten said that the Berrien County Health Department is working to try to ensure that those who have been exposed, or have experienced presumed exposure, are being isolated or quarantined during their 14-day periods.

The health department’s staff is also looking into other ways to stop and slow viral transmission for those who may not have a safe place to self-isolate.

“We know not everybody will be able to self-isolate or self-quarantine at home based on their living situations,” Britten said. “Whether that’s due to transient housing, the amount of people that live in their home, or for people that are homeless, we are looking into facilities so that if we have to order somebody into isolation or quarantine a bit more forcefully, we have the facilities to do so.”

Another focus for the health department during the health crisis is looking at facilities that serve the senior populations. With about 200 senior housing, assisted living, nursing homes and adult foster care facilities in the county, the health department has been working to maintain contact to learn of their personal protection equipment needs.

Britten revealed that the Berrien County Health Department had received a shipment from the Strategic National Stockpile of PPE two to three weeks ago.

“We’ve been told that’s pretty much the end of what we will be getting from SNS. We shouldn’t expect more in that regard,” Britten said.

Britten reminded the board of commissioners that the health department is responsible for distributing the SNS provided PPE to nursing homes, primary care providers and law enforcement. The shipment was much smaller than expected.

“When we were given two boxes of gowns and three boxes of gloves, that’s not even enough to cover what the health department would need, let alone be able to share with our partners,” Britten said.

The department will continue to look for more supplies and has received donations from organizations in the community to help fulfill its needs.

After Britten’s update, the meeting continued as planned.

Commissioner Ezra Scott, of the county’s ninth district, announced that he, along with commissioners Jim Curran, of the 11th district, and Teri Sue Freehling, of the eighth district, would be meeting with John Egelhaaf later in the afternoon. Egelhaaf, executive director of the Southwest Michigan Planning Commission. The commissioners planned to discuss internet access to the south county area.

“We’re in kind of a dire need for this now because have all the people that are home, especially the children,” Scott said. “They’re not able to get online to do a lot of their studies. There’s no bandwidth. I just wanted to let everybody on the board know that we are working on that, to see what we can do to expedite this.”

Also during the meeting, Bill Chickering, of the fifth district, announced he will not be seeking re-election in the next cycle.

The meeting closed with the pledge of allegiance and a prayer, rituals that generally open the meeting. The board of commissioners announced that they would know by Tuesday whether they would continue to meet at 10:30 a.m. next Thursday for their regularly scheduled meeting.