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COMMUNITYNEWS.ORG
COPING WITH COVID-19 We’re here for you
BILL SANSERVINO FROM THE EDITOR
A lot has changed since the last time you received the Ewing Observer in your mailbox. COVID-19 has altered all of our lives, and I believe there are aspects that will never return to the way they were before. Fortunately there’s one thing that hasn’t changed—we at the Observer are still committed to providing accurate, timely news to our community. With our coronavirus coverage, our goal is not to alarm you, but to give you the information you need in order to stay safe, informed and connected. We want to keep things in context in order to help you make decisions, and highlight the things going on in our community—good and bad—that might affect you during this health crisis. These are certainly strange times, but we’re making the best of them. Several days ago, the governor issued his stay-at-home order, and it seems that for the foreseeable future, we will be doing our best to report the news from our home offices. There’s a lot more on our website, communitynews.org, than we could fit into this issue. Our editorial staff has been working around the clock to produce dozens of articles, approaching life in this area from every angle imaginable. Check out the website for up-to-theminute news and community-focused See LETTER, Page 3
WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS? These symptoms may appear two to 14 days after exposure to COVID-19: If emergency warning signs develop, get medical attention immediately
Fever
Cough
Shortness of breath
· Difficulty breathing · Persistent pain or pressure in the chest · New confusion or inability to arouse · Bluish lips or face
HOW DOES IT SPREAD? The COVID-19 virus is mainly spread person-to-person by being in close contact with someone (within 6 ft.) or through respiratory droplets from an infected person sneezing or coughing. Another way COVID-19 can spread is by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching the mouth, nose or eyes. HOW CAN I REDUCE MY RISK?
Wash hands ofte n
Stay home
Limit personal contact (6 ft.)
Stay away from sick people
Clean & disinfect frequently touched surfaces
Don’t touch eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands
Practice social distancing
Emergency medical corps seeks volunteers By MicHele AlPerin
Mercer County needs you. Faced with a growing number of COVID-19 cases, the county has put out a call for volunteers to join the Mercer County Medical Reserve Corps, a group that has been created to assist during times of crisis. In the wake of September 11, the U.S. Office of the Surgeon General, established the MRC as a demonstration project, whose role is to identify, train and track volunteers who can strengthen local public health and serve if another human-made or natural disaster occurred. MRC volunteer and East Wind-
sor resident Al Grupper explains the government’s motivation: “When the World Trade Center fell, they had volunteers show up, but there was no management or structure. MRC has a chain of command and a mission.” “We don’t self-mobilize; we are called out for an emergency,” Grupper says. “If Stephanie [Mendelsohn, public health nurse and coordinator of the MRC] says ‘Come,’ we have to make sure our family is safe first, then we can go.” Mendelsohn, a Pennington resident, has been running from meeting to meeting and teleconference to teleconference, as the coronavirus continues to spread in the county.
HEALTH
HEADLINES B I - M O N T H LY N E WS F R O M
She says the MRC has already surveyed its volunteers to see if they would be available to staff a county hotline (to help handle the multitude of calls arriving at each municipality’s health department) and to do phone surveillance to check whether people who had been in contact with individuals with COVID-19 have any fever. “This is just the beginning stages; we want as many volunteers as we can get,” Mendelsohn says. “We have 359 volunteers, but with something like this coronavirus, not everyone is going to come, because they are worried or have someone at home who is sick or are a doctor or nurse working overtime.” See VOLUNTEERS, Page 8
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