Annapolis receives 25% of all Anne Arundel coronavirus tests; OEM director asks for more data

Annapolis, like many Maryland municipalities, has had to make do with a dearth of resources during the coronavirus pandemic. Tests, in particular, have been hard to come by.

The city receives about 80 coronavirus tests from the Anne Arundel Health Department for twice-monthly walk-up testing sites, which account for 25% of the county’s monthly capacity, said county Health Officer Nilesh Kalyanaraman.

While it is unclear when the county will receive more tests, Annapolis will get more when the time comes, he said. “Of course, as we get more capacity, more tests are going to go everywhere, that goes without saying.”

Kalynaraman pointed to other ways city residents can access testing like the twice-weekly drive-thru testing sites at Anne Arundel Medical Center and Glen Burnie or through a private doctor.

In the meantime, Office of Emergency Management Director Kevin Simmons has had to use the tests he receives wisely, directing them to walk-up testing sites in underserved areas of the city like Parole Health Center, Harbour House and Morris Blum Senior Apartments.

Those who are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the respiratory virus, may schedule an appointment for the next walk-up site scheduled for Monday near Tyler Heights Elementary School. Call 410-222-7256 to schedule an appointment.

Because there is no indication when more tests may become available, Simmons has asked Anne Arundel County Health Department for more specific data that could show where exactly the virus is located in the city.

A similar tactic was used to address high numbers of opioid overdoses, Simmons said. It helped his department understand that opioids were affecting an entirely different population — black men — in the city than in the county where white men were most likely to overdose.

“We want to make sure that we don’t upset that delicate balance of confidentiality and then understanding where our trouble spots are,” Simmons said. “We want to know what’s going on in the city proper. We’ve had discussions about it. We’re hoping that eventually, we can get that data.”

Kalyanaraman said the city-specific data that Simmons has asked for will go no deeper than ZIP code, but it will include other useful demographic information that the health department provides at the county-level like race and ethnicity, age and gender.

The county health department already provides the number of cases in each of the county’s ZIP codes, but they do not specify exactly where in those communities the cases are focused. In the two ZIP codes that comprise the Annapolis city limits, 21401 and 21403, 373 cases have been reported.

As for when that Annapolis case data could appear? Ideally, next week, Kalyanaraman said. “It is coming soon, although I don’t know when.”

Feedback to inform policy

On Thursday, Mayor Gavin Buckley convened a virtual town hall seeking feedback from a range of panelists from medical, mental health, business and arts fields about how to best utilize the limited resources and discuss how the pandemic has impacted the black community.

Will Rowel, a community relations specialist in Buckley’s office, led the 11 panelists through the discussion, which touched on the disparities in the number of black people who have been infected by or died from coronavirus in the county, barriers to accessing mental health and childcare resources and finding ways around the digital divide.

Octavia Brown, an Annapolitan and mental health clinician, was one of several panelists who stressed the importance of breaking the mental health stigma in the black community, urging people who need help to seek it out.

Another issue, Brown said, is the lack of clinicians of color that people can go to.

“We just overall feel more comfortable being able to sit with an African American clinician and unfortunately there’s not a huge number of African American clinicians,” she said.

Thornell Jones, an Annapolis activist, called on the city and county to create a task force to address subsidized housing and find funding to help bridge the digital divide.

“Students who don’t have computers can’t compete,” Jones said.

Anne Arundel County Health Department data shows 30% of cases where race or ethnicity is known, are black people and 26% of deaths are of black people.

Anne Arundel County is about 15% black.

Another panelist Kai Borgess-de Bruin, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer of Health and Human Services for Anne Arundel County, said a key to addressing that disparity is providing mental health services by telephone and online to people in need. If someone doesn’t have internet access they may call the county to request an application be dropped off or mailed to them.

“We are identifying the gaps and really trying to work through how to provide services that address those gaps in what our traditional services can handle,” Borgess-de Bruin said. “We are trying to be flexible and adapable and, you know, for the government that can be a real challenge.”