Fulton City Council is planning a last-ditch effort to gain access to city-specific COVID-19 data.
During Tuesday evening's meeting, Fulton City Council members passed a motion resolving to send formal letters to the Callaway County Health Department and the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services asking for the data. Mayor Lowe Cannell said the letter could be drafted as early as Wednesday.
City Council members want to know Fulton's numbers before moving ahead to a vote on a proposed mask mandate. That ordinance, adapted from an ordinance already in place in Springfield, is headed to legal review following another vote Tuesday.
Ward 4's Rick Shiverdecker and Ward 1's Valerie Sebacher voted against submitting the draft ordinance for review by the city's lawyer; the other six council members voted in favor.
"I'd rather have more city-specific information before we invest in legal council," Sebacher said after the meeting. "It's important to have an informed decision."
Shiverdecker offered similar reasoning.
However, support was unanimous for Ward 2 council member Jeff Stone's motion to request COVID-19 data for Fulton.
"We're 31.8 percent of the county's population in the city of Fulton," Ward 3's John Braun said. "If we had solid numbers to make a determination on there's so much information that's not out there, that we're not privy to. And I have an issue with that, I have an issue with making a decision without information."
Council members decided to ask for the number of cases among people living in Fulton to date, the number of active cases, the number of deaths among Fulton residents and the number of hospitalizations. They also want to know what age ranges the cases fall within - children, young adults, older adults or the elderly.
"And we'd like this on a routine basis - I'd like to have it daily with the county numbers," Stone said.
At Ward 1 council member Ballard Simmon's suggestion, council members decided the letter will be sent first to the Callaway County Health Department and - if a week lapses with no response or the CCHD says no - then to the DHSS.
"I have no problem making this request to the county, but if we ask the state for the same data, it feels like we're going over the county's head," Simmons said. "It might get them a little upset."
This is only the latest development in an ongoing struggle by the city to gain access to this data.
The CCHD regularly shares three pieces of county-level data with the city, which posts that data at CallawayCOVID19.com. Those three numbers include the cumulative Callaway County cases, the number of active cases and the number of recovered patients.
During a meeting last week between Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services Director Dr. Randall Williams and city officials, Williams said providing city-level data for a city of Fulton's size would not violate federal health privacy law HIPAA. He even offered to provide that data to the city - but it hasn't materialized yet.
Williams followed up with Callaway County Health Department Director Sharon Lynch last week and told her sharing the data should be OK, DHSS spokesperson Lisa Cox said. But as of Friday, Lynch said she still won't be providing Fulton-specific data.
"He advised me I could do that," Lynch said. "He did not offer me anything in writing or anything I could stand on. I'm not going to do it until I get that. My documentation, what I found and what I have, says I cannot do it."
A number of other counties within Missouri have opted to share city-specific data with patrons. Fulton City Administrator Bill Johnson said he's been in contact with fellow city managers in an attempt to find out how they've justified it under HIPAA.
"Some of them are releasing very detailed information," Johnson said. "So I've asked them, 'Where's the written authority that says what your health department is releasing is allowable?'"
Johnson said that only one city manager had an answer, and it seemed to pertain more to sharing data with first responders than with city governments. And though Williams has verbally approved sharing city-level data, Lynch said, he wouldn't do it in writing.
"And that says something," Simmons said.
Braun encouraged audience members who also want access to that COVID-19 data to speak out.
"If people have issues, they need to reach out to their county commissioners," he said. "They need to call them, just like they did with us as the City Council. Feel free to call the health department."