(NBC 26) -- As some businesses begin to open back up, some local health officials said it's happening faster than they would have liked.
Last week, several counties and cities lifted their stay-at-home orders. NBC 26 spoke with multiple county officials to learn more about what might happen if there's a spike in cases.
"Right now, the way Brown County is going to operate is essentially the tools and authority that it has currently. If they are aware or made aware through contact tracing or through advice that's being provided to us through law enforcement, we have the ability to isolate on a case-by-case certain situation. So if we find that a certain employer is known to have somewhat of an outbreak or is the center of an outbreak, we can go in and verify that they're providing for the appropriate guidance and regulations in terms of their operations, and we can monitor from then," said Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach.
Brown County Corporation Counsel David Hemery said one issue he saw with the county-wide order was that it ordered all people and businesses to take certain actions.
"It's always traditionally been a local health department's duty to investigate, make recommendations, and ultimately order on a case-by-case basis what needs to be done to protect the public health. I'm not saying we don't have additional authority. Certainly, the local health officer has the authority to provide a maximum number of individuals that gather in public so there's different various authorities that are still available to us. Where I see this heading going forward is for us to do more case-by-case analysis and either ordering specific individuals or specific entities to act in a way that isn't detrimental to the public health," added Hemery.
Doug Gieryn, the health officer and director of Winnebago County Public Health Department, said with more movement in the community, they are expecting to see an increase in COVID-19 cases.
"It may take a little time for us to see a spike as a result of that, but we do expect that to happen; so we're trying to be as ready for that as we can, trying to be on top of that as much as we can so we can hopefully limit the impact and that and really let people know what we're seeing when we see it," added Gieryn.
He said although the order was struck down, there are still public health tools they can use or appropriate measures to put in place.
"A tool for us would be take a look at mass gatherings. We license many of the establishments that are potential, you know, convening places or places where transmission might occur if not managed well. We really don't want to have to use those other tools, but we do have other tools," said Gieryn.
Outagamie County Executive Thomas Nelson said this has all been confusing and frustrating for a lot of people. He said one thing to focus on at the local level right now is vigorous testing and tracing. He said people are able to get tested for COVID-19 at Fox Valley Technical College during this time. He said they have the capacity to do nearly 100 tests per hour.
"The best thing we can do is to continue the practices we've been doing the last two months. What I tell folks is pretends as though the safe-at-home order is still here, and you should go about your day in that manner, which means only travel if you absolutely have to, please be very vigilant in social distancing, always six feet away. Wash your hands, basic sanitary stuff. Those type of things." added Nelson. "The more that we keep up those practices to maintain that kind of behavior, we will be in the best position possible to control this virus."
He said the more we do that, the better the position to control the virus.
