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BERRIEN COUNTY — With news changing rapidly around the COVID-19 pandemic, the Berrien County Health Department is working to keep pace with local needs and precautions.

As of 3 p.m. Monday, 60 of Michigan’s 17,221 confirmed COVID-19 cases were reported in Berrien County.

The health department’s website confirmed two deaths in Berrien County, juxtaposed with Michigan’s loss of 727 to the virus. The website also reported that 28 of the confirmed cases in the county had recovered.

Gillian Conrad, communications manager for the Berrien County Health Department, said that the recovered number the department is sharing is meant to be a positive light during challenging times.

“That’s a ‘good news’ piece of this that we want to make sure is a part of the narrative we are sharing,” Conrad said.

As news with COVID-19 develops quickly across the country, updates locally can move just as quickly. Supply updates from the health department were hinted at during Thursday’s Berrien County Board of Commissioners meeting, as well as new developments to come in the fight against the coronavirus.

The patients that fall under the “recovered” listing come from two categories.

“Basically what we are using as that definition [for reported recovered patients] is that anyone who has passed their period of needing to be isolated, because of having symptoms. They are three days past the point of having an active symptom,” Conrad said. “Or it has been seven days since their symptom onset — whichever is longer.”

Conrad said it was a difficult number to continue to report on, as the case count increases.

“Not to lessen the risk of COVID-19, but it’s to help encourage individuals that it is not all doom and gloom,” Conrad said. “Most people — around 80 percent —  will only feel mild to moderate illness.”

As COVID-19 cases continue to increase in Michigan, the Berrien County Health Department has been working in in lockstep with Spectrum Health Lakeland as the department develops next steps in the process of addressing the crisis.

Spectrum Lakeland’s website now has a COVID-19 Spectrum Health Lakeland Dashboard to illustrate how the virus is impacting patients and the hospitals’ resources. While the charts do not break down the numbers to differentiate between hospitals, they do show non-intensive care unit and ICU patients, testing numbers over the past 24 hours, and ventilators in use.

“The hospitals have mostly focused recently on their planning and capacity for a surge of critically ill patients that could potentially happen here in the next couple of weeks,” Conrad said. “But there’s joint information going out from the two entities [Spectrum Lakeland and the health department], and a lot of collaboration on gathering data together.”

During Thursday’s Berrien County Board of Commissioners meeting broadcast live on YouTube, the commissioners received an update from Nikki Britten, health officer for the Berrien County Health Department.

During that update, Britten mentioned that the health department was exploring the possibility of adding isolation and quarantine facilities in the area.

“This is not a field hospital,” Conrad clarified. “What is being discussed is an isolation and/or quarantine facility that would provide a physical space for those individuals who do not have a space to isolate or be quarantined.”

Individuals who are homeless, have transient housing, or who have too many housemates to properly confine themselves would be those considered for these spaces. It is currently recommended to self-isolate or quarantine for 14 days if an individual is showing symptoms of COVID-19.

Conrad said that the isolation and quarantine facilities would not be open to just anyone who would like to stay there, but for those with a genuine hurdle in complying with staying isolated during a 14-day period.

Britten also mentioned in her address to the Berrien County Board of Commissioners that personal protective equipment was available in shorter supply. Britten revealed that the county had received just two boxes of gowns and three boxes of gloves from the Strategic National Stockpile.

“When the health department first received some of our allotment from the Strategic National Stockpile supplies that the state of Michigan received, they were almost comically low,” Conrad said. “We received next to nothing. We know that Michigan is receiving more and more every single day, and that it is being divvied up and sent to the counties, as well as hospital and EMS first responders.”

The health department makes sure that supplies go to its community partners like long-term care facilities, skilled nursing facilities, volunteer facilities and organizations serving critical needs within the county.

With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations adding recommendations to wear masks, even fabric masks, out in public for those making essential trips, Conrad explained the importance of the measure.

“It is really important to note that masks are not replacing previous guidelines for social distancing and maintaining a 6-foot distance between people, washing hands, cough and sneeze etiquette,” she said. “All of those guidelines are still in place, and a mask should not make anyone feel invincible. It’s simply another voluntary action you can take.”

Fabric masks can protect the wearer from actively spreading a virus while they are asymptomatic.

Workers and volunteers in lower risk environments are utilizing homemade, cloth masks at this time within the health department. These include persons delivering Meals on Wheels and workers not within surgical centers.

The health department is accepting donations of PPE. Conrad said Spectrum Lakeland is also accepting donations as well, and that surgical masks, including the N95 that are in short supply, along with gloves, are all being accepted. Homemade, cloth masks are also being accepted as donations at the Berrien County Health Department.

“We are fortunate to not be in a ‘hot zone’ at this moment in time,” Conrad said. “Our hospitals are not overwhelmed with critically ill patients yet, so we have the gift of time to continue to prepare as best as we possibly can before we hit the peak of our epidemiological curve of this outbreak.”