If the phrase “looking for “sign”” is new to you, ask any deer hunter that you might know. All successful deer hunters these days “scout out” the territory they plan on hunting in for signs that deer frequent the area and where their normal “paths” are. The look for small saplings with “rub” marks on them where a buck deer rubs the “velvet” off his new set of antlers. Mature buck deer get a new set of antlers every year. The hunter looks for deer “droppings.” Feces one might say, most say “deer-shit,” which is not the same as “bull-shit” as one might hear from elected and appointed officials when they are covering up corruption and wasteful spending. Especially around election time.
The “sign” I am looking for, and have found, as related to the Cleveland County Commissioners, Cleveland County Schools Board of Education, the Health Department (COVID related) and the Cleveland Community College Board of Trustees is documents or reports that collaborate what these officials are saying is true or false, And if the reports indicate that the leadership is spewing “bull-shit,” just where the truth actually lies.
Also, I know the folks involved in all the cover-ups going on in the gor3enental agencies noted above are telling citizens not to believe anything I way. That I am lying about all the bad things I report that they are doing. I have come to believe that all these bad things that I have been reporting on for years are not as bad as I have portrayed them to be. The “sign” that I have been finding NOW indicates the situation is worse that I have ever reporting on before. MUCH WORSE!!!
COVID 19 — First, let’s look at the COVID situation as it inter-relates to local agencies.
As many of you readers already know, the “19” in COVID 19 did NOT come from the nineteenth version of COVID, but from the COVID super bug that came out of China in 2019. Now it is 2021 and the ninth months of 2021 at that. Now joined by the Delta Variant. All multiplied by the influx of outsiders coming to the American Legion World Series and the temporary opening of the Catawba Casino. I predict that the long-term legacy of the ALWS and Casino openings will eventually be “sickness and death” instead of “jobs and economic development.”
The Cleveland County Health Department, still “reeling” from the sex scandals and Federal Lawsuits (and payoffs) coming out of there, along with the so-called “early retirements” and resignations of folks at the highest levels, has caused delays in services and planning relating to the overall health of the residents of Cleveland County.
Examples of this are the delays in getting out the 2019 Health Department’s Cleveland County Annual Report way into 2020. This report’s Executive Summary admitted that the delays getting the report out was due, in large part, to the high level of turnover of the Health Department Leadership Team. I made mention of that report in previous articles and that Report has “disappeared” from the Cleveland County’s Website. Imagine that. County Manager Brian Epley’s work I suppose. However, I downloaded it. But that is not the subject of this article so I will address that separately in other articles.
Of more timely interest related to the clear and present danger of the COVID Delta Variant is the Health Departments Public Health Response in the event of a public health emergency or disaster. The following is presently stated on the County’s Website.
PLANNING, PARTNERSHIPS AND PUBLIC HEALTH RESPONSE
In the event of a public health emergency or disaster:
The Cleveland County Public Health Center in coordination with local emergency management will open temporary clinic sites, also called a Point of Dispensing (POD). At a POD preventative medication and/or vaccine is given to people who are not yet sick.
There are four school locations in Cleveland County designated to open as a POD: Burns Middle School, Crest High School, Cleveland Community College and Kings Mountain Intermediate School. To access preventive medicine, you should report to the POD closest to your home.
In the event that a mass dispensing is deemed necessary by state and local officials, information about POD locations, dates and times will be made available through local media.
Although these are general terms, a major news report from just yesterday indicated that Rex Hospital in Raleigh (Wake County with about the same COVID numbers as Cleveland County) has run out of available beds and that “Surge Tents” were going to be brought in to provide shelter for emergency surgery, COVID treatment, etc.
What the report did NOT say was who provides and sets up such things as “Surge Tents” in an emergency?? The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)??? Assisted by the National Guard???
And, since Cleveland County has the same COVID rates as Wake County and the Shelby Hospital, like REX Hospital is full (School Board member Rodney Fitch has come down with a bad case of COVID and was turned away from the Shelby Hospital because of a lack of space), it is high time that such as these “Surge Tents” and the National Guard to put them up be brought to Cleveland County also. Where are the Cleveland County Manager, Commissioners and Health Department on that? Are they even awake to the issues and potential actions???