Let’s look at the Real Facts:
The Lehigh Acres Fire district has 120 employees ….. 103 in which live outside of the Lehigh Acres fire district, of the 103, 12 live in Broward, Miami / Dade or Monroe County’s the epicenter of the COVID-19 breakouts in Florida.
The staffing rotation at the Lehigh Acres fire stations is one day on then two days off. Work one day back home for two in Broward, Miami / Dade or Monroe Counties. That’s 10 days on and 20 days off in the month of April 2020.
COVID 19 cases as of April 9, 2020 12 pm —- Broward 2,454, Miami/Dade 5,745, Monroe 52
Could those 12 employees infect the Lehigh Acres Fire Dept and or the patients or citizens they come in contact with? The answer is YES.
Currently COVID 19 cases by zip code — we have 149 cases in the Lehigh Acres zip codes: 33936 -10, 33971- 26, 33972 – 14, 33905 – 39, 33920 – 5, 33974 – 12, 33976 – 9, 33913 – 16, 33973 – 9 and 33975 – 9 as of 12 pm April 9, 2020.
According to news reports:
“Ten Los Angeles County firefighters, six Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and several other Los Angeles County firefighters were quarantining themselves at home after assisting coronavirus patients.”
“San Jose firefighters, so far, 10 firefighters have tested positive for COVID-19 and 50 others are in self-isolation.”
“Twelve of 30 firefighters and police officers in Kirkland Washington, who have been quarantined after potential or direct exposure to the COVID-19 virus.”
“Sarasota County’s Florida fire chief confirming this afternoon that one of his firefighters from Station 7 on 17th Street, testing positive for coronavirus.” and on and on and on……..
Lehigh Regional has never released COVID 19 numbers through any media channel why? So, where do the possible COVID 19 patients go to Gulf Coast Regional Hospital from Lehigh Acres? Do the Lehigh Acres ambulances get thoroughly disinfected after every trip?
We reach out by email to Katie Heck the Fire Districts PIO and The Fire Chief Robert DiLallo for a phone interview with the Fire Chief and the answer was, “Chief DiLallo is unavailable at this time”.
This 15-minute interview that we asked for could have been done any time 24 / 7 and the Chief is still unavailable.
Where is the transparency of this fire district?
So, the Lehigh Acres Gazette sent them four questions hoping that someone where answer them?
The questions:
Have all employees been tested for the COVID 19 virus? YES, NO or how many?
Is any employee(s) COVID 19 positive at this time?? YES, NO or how many?
What precautions is the district during to protect the employees and patients?
Since 12 employees live to an epicenter of COVID 19 in Florida what extra precautions of any are the district during?
As of today, post date and time April 9, 2020 1 pm the fire district has not returned our email.
It seems to us that this fire district doesn’t want to be transparent nor does not even care about its responsibility to its patients and or taxpayers and the citizens that help pay their salaries!
Please note that more than 86% of all the employees live outside the Lehigh Acres fire district and 10% live more than two hours away. Maybe they live outside the fire district so they do not have to pay the huge fire assessment fee every year????
Editorial NOTE: By the way the Fire Commissioners give the firefighters two raises in the past 18 months.
Ok so how about they just stop responding to all calls to prevent any chance of infection? You can’t have it both ways. It’s the risk they all take to continue to do their jobs. Thankfully they are willing to run that risk.
We never said to stop responding to calls but the fire department needs to be transparent to the questions. BTW if they refuse to response to a call Lee County EMS has to cover them that’s the law.
Are these same questions being asked of other healthcare providers or just singling out Lehigh Acres FD with some hidden agenda?
Healthcare providers do not follow the same rules. We only numbers for Lehigh Acres Fire. But facts are the facts 103 of 120 live outside the district and 12 employees live in the epicenter
I have been asked by a physicians office in Lehigh Acres, prior to entering, if I or anyone in my home has been to Palm Beach, Broward or Dade counties. Service at that point would have been refused and forced to reschedule, if the answer was “yes”. My husband is no longer traveling to work in Dade County because of the high numbers of Covid 19 in that region. I am not sure I would want to receive emergent care from someone who comes from a “hot spot” like the Southeastern portion for Florida, which is currently carrying 60%+ of the Covid cases in Florida. I would love for our taxes to be used to ensure Covid isn’t being spread in Lehigh Acres by these extremely “essential” workers. Test them, release the measures being taken to protect our community, temporarily house, locally, your workers who live in those other counties or furlough them if they don’t want to relocate temporarily. It’s 10% of the employees, can’t cost much to ensure the safety and health of 94,000 Lehigh Acres residents.