MOHAVE COUNTY – Mohave County Supervisors got through Tuesday’s COVID-19 management discussion in less than 7-minutes without any of the debate over policy and data that has bogged down previous deliberation of pandemic-related topics. Department of Public Health Director Denise Burley said mass testing of hundreds of inmates at the privately operated state prison in Golden Valley went better than expected.
There had been concern that COVID-19 spread among inmates could drive up the case positivity rate in Mohave County. Burley told board members that she didn’t have specific statistics at the ready, but that the county positivity rate will not be harmed by infection among the 2,864 inmates who were tested.
“It was a very low number,” Burley assured the board. “It actually worked to our benefit.”
Burley said fewer than 350 people have registered for up to 3,000 tests that Health and Human Services will be conducting between September 10-14 in Lake Havasu, Bullhead City and Kingman. Burley said that, as of 7:00 a.m. Tuesday, Bullhead City led the way with 182 pre-registrations, Kingman was next with 92 and that 68 had signed up in Lake Havasu.
Supervisors did not discuss a request that the county review its practice of having the Clerk or Board members give an invocation near the beginning of Board meetings. A motion to keep that practice in place was approved by unanimous vote.
County Manager Sam Elters told the Board that staff continues working to design a countywide Facebook page. Mohave is the only Arizona county without a centralized Facebook page and Elters said that will change when the county launches its page within the next couple of weeks.
- -Dave Hawkins
