The State of the Pandemic is an exclusive six-part digital series on how Erie, Crawford, Warren and Venango counties in northwest Pennsylvania, as well as Chautauqua County in western New York, and Ashtabula County in northeast Ohio, are doing one year into the pandemic.  

Erie News Now speaks with health directors and county leaders about the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in their counties. 

In part four of the series, we speak with Venango County Commissioners Chip Abramovic and Mike Dulaney. Here is where they believe Venango County stands one year into the COVID-19 pandemic: 

As we approach the one year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, how would you say Venango County has done overall?

Chip: I think we did really well, honestly, especially in a world where we didn't know what it was like. I think we did great. We also administered $2 million - probably 50 percent of our CARES Act money, if not more - went to small businesses, nonprofits and fire departments to help get them through with the grant programs we offered. Aside from that, our COVID numbers for the longest time stayed low until the big spike that really was everywhere in October. So we dodged that bullet. At this point, we haven't heard of too many businesses shutting down because of the pandemic. We know they're struggling still, but they're still hanging on. Our local residents really did a great push of supporting local, which has helped get us through a lot of this.

Mike: I can't say enough for our local residents. They really stepped up. Even if it was just them getting the take-outs to go, they recognize that during these times, the nonprofits really look for support from the local community. A lot of the people around here are just charitable to begin with, and they recognize that - okay, we ask a lot of these businesses. It's time that we give back.

As Chip said, our numbers are back down. Like today, we had seven new cases across the whole county. I think we've done a fantastic job. Everybody has really stepped up to the plate in more ways. UPMC, for instance, brought in nursing student. We've got retired pharmacists coming out of retirement just to help administer this dose. So a lot of people are looking at this - even Cranberry Mall (holding a vaccination clinic at a former Bon-Ton) - as their civic duty. This is how they contribute back to help us get through this pandemic.

HOW ARE VACCINATIONS PROGRESSING IN VENANGO COUNTY?

UPMC Northwest is partnering with the Cranberry Mall and the Venango County government to provide mass vaccinations at the former Bon-Ton department store. Vaccinations began there during the last week of February. There is a capacity of 2,000 vaccinations per week. 

Most nursing homes and long term care facilities are fully vaccinated or very close. One final clinic is scheduled for the first week of March to vaccinate anyone that may have been missed. The vaccinations are being administered in partnership with CVS Pharmacy. 

Venango County's two Rite Aids and one Giant Eagle are now offering vaccinations; however, they only have about 100 doses available each week, which equates to roughly 20 shots a day. 

Abramovic and Dulaney are optimistic that once long term care facilities are fully vaccinated, CVS will begin to offer vaccinations to the general public. 

Between the two health systems in Venango County - UPMC and Butler Health - UPMC is handling the majority of the heavy lifting when it comes to vaccinations. 

WHAT IS THE YOUR BIGGEST CONCERN AT THIS POINT?

Chip: Mental health. I live in the middle of the woods in French Creek, which is awesome before COVID, because when I was done with work, I was home. Away. I don't have Internet barely, and I hardly have cell phone service - a great escape until you're stuck there all day, every day, for six months. So I think the biggest thing is our is the mental health of people being shut inside and our seniors that haven't been going out and doing stuff. But I would assume at this point, it is the mental health aspect of everything, plus getting vaccines in people's arms, especially our elderly.

Mike: We are also dealing with the CYS (Children and Youth Services) because you don't have the kids in school. That was that was a concern from the get go. The mandated reporters, that number was obviously down because the teachers weren't seeing the kids. Are they getting enough food? Are they in an abusive situation? Stuff like that. So a lot of the concern is for the mental health and also the safety of the kids because if they're in a bad environment, they're stuck in that bad environment.

DOES VENANGO COUNTY HAVE A PLAN IN PLACE FOR IF/WHEN THE CORONAVIRUS VARIANTS ARRIVE THERE?

Mike: So we have (Venango County) EMA (Emergency Management Agency) working on that right now and that has been a concern of ours if it gets here. Thankfully, we haven't had those variants get into the county yet. But they working on a plan to to deal with it if and when it happens.

DO YOU FORESEE SPECIAL EVENTS HAPPENING THIS SUMMER?

Chip: So I run the Franklin Blues and Barbecue Festival. Where we're at right now with planning it, our thought is last year we had to cancel. But we're planning on having it because if we have to scale it back or cancel it, the culture's okay with that. It's not like, 'oh, they're bad people because they canceled it.' We're still planning everything ahead, being optimistic that with the vaccine rollout and everything else, we don't know what it's going to fully look like. But we're planning like it was pre-COVID. And we're getting that from a lot of our organizations. Plan like COVID's not here because if stuff doesn't change, we can always scale back.

Mike: In my previous job, I used to I used to run the Apple Fest that we do every year down here. Everybody is making their requests, obviously, to the municipality for these programs. But there's an understanding - and it's been said at every meeting - there's a caveat that this only works if restrictions are lifted or if the pandemic is under control. We're being cautiously optimistic.

WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU'VE SEEN SINCE THE PANDEMIC BEGAN THAT HAS STUCK OUT TO YOU?

Mike: I don't know that I'd call this a surprise - it was how much the community really stepped forward to help all these people. I'm fairly proud of the fact that during this whole last year, we maybe only lost one or two businesses. And those one or two businesses were people that were already thinking about retiring anyways and this was the last thing they needed to just say, 'okay, it's time for me to bow out.' I think a lot of that did have to do with our grant that helped keep these businesses going. Our people showed up in a way I've never seen before to support everybody here. They really thought of it as their responsibility.

HOW ARE ARE VENANGO COUNTY'S HOSPITALS DOING?

Mike: They never hit capacity. They got close at the height. One nurse did describe it as they felt like they were getting on a treadmill for 13 hours a day because there was just no break. They were just going, going, going. Thankfully, it didn't get to a place like how New York was at the very start of this. They were able to keep it under control. Now, they said they're they're down to just a couple of people. They're handling it. They've got under control. They feel like they can breathe again. And that's been the biggest thing because it was high stress for them for the longest time. And I truthfully think, right around the holidays, when when the state had all of these doctors and nurses going out there and pleading with people to please be smart about this, I think it helped. And I know we had shut downs, too. But for a lot of people, it turned the argument from 'I should be allowed to do what I want' to 'we've got to give these nurses a break,' because regardless, there's still a population that's affected by this.

Chip: Also with our hospital, our first cases we had that were in there weren't Venango residents. They were Clarion, or Forest County, or Armstrong County or maybe Butler County. Being rural, there's not a lot of health systems. I know Clarion has Clarion Hospital. So the two or three people in here, they might not even be even Venango residents. They might be Forest County residents. When they were at their peak, we don't know how many of them were even Venango people.

Mike: One of the nice things about being part of the UPMC system is, they're able to ship them to other UPMCs. So, if something did happen to our hospital, they were able to get them to another. I know we've had residents of ours up in Erie at that UPMC. That's the benefit of having, in my opinion, such a large network being your main hospital because then they can kind of spread some of that burden amongst all of the hospitals rather than two or three hospitals carrying so much and these other ones not doing anything.