Chatham County Roundup: A Human Response

Join Aaron Keck every Tuesday afternoon for Chatham County Roundup, a recurring series that shines the spotlight on Chatham County through engaging discussions and interviews with locals, newsmakers, officials and more.

This week on Chatham County Roundup, join Aaron Keck for a conversation with county commissioner Karen Howard concerning development of coronavirus in Chatham county, a recent COVID-19 outbreak at a chicken processing plant — and what duties companies have to protect workers.

“We’re still seeing the numbers go up in Chatham County, and we’re fairly certain that it’s because we are doing such rigorous testing at the local level,” said Howard. “Probably more than a lot of surrounding counties, just because we do have the support of a project that’s happening through UNC. And we also have a couple of local businesses that have had outbreaks, so they’re having increased testing and then contact tracing, which leads to obviously more potential diagnoses of the virus.”

One area of concern to Howard is the response of businesses and the impact those decisions have on employees that live and work in our community.

“I think that there is a corporate response and then there’s a human response and I think we’re missing the human response,” said Howard. “We know that we operate in an environment where people are forced to make decisions that are not necessarily in their best interests because of financial reasons, because of fear of losing a job, out of inaccessibility of healthcare. As a corporate citizen, at some point you have to put aside that underlying monetary question and ask whether we’re doing what’s best for people. And I’m not quite satisfied that we’re doing what’s best for people and this particular situation.”

As the situation around COVID-19 continues to develop, both in Chatham and elsewhere, local officials are attempting to adapt strategy and policy to best suit an unprecedented scenario.

“I’ve said before, we don’t have a playbook, right? We are listening to the guidance, we are following the science, we’re following the data — but there is no real playbook for how to go about this,” said Howard. “Hopefully, we’re using good judgment and we’re not just thinking about our personal impact, right? We’re thinking bigger, and we’re thinking about community impact and how what we do impacts everyone around us.”

Listen below for the full conversation, and tune in weekly for conversations about Chatham County happenings, people, news and more.