Annie Lumbar Bendson - Minnetonka School District Health 










Service Coordinator on Covid 19

We had an amazing and informative Excelsior Rotary Club Meeting on Tuesday, November 17^th!  We received important updates and our speaker was Annie Lumbar Bendson who is the Minnetonka District Health Service Coordinator.

Darel Leiopld was the Greeter and led us in the pledge and 4 Way Test.  He also commented on Veteran’s Day and how Glenn Froberg always did a presentation to honor Vets prior to his death a year ago.  So Darel asked us to join him in the Battle Hymn of the Republic to honor our Vets and also in remembrance of Glenn.

Club Announcements included several members giving updates:                                                                                            

Our Guest Speaker was Annie Lumbar Bendson who is our Minnetonka School District’s Health Service Coordinator and was introduced by Tim Litfin who praised her leadership, insight, expertise and tenacity during this pandemic.  Annie began by saying that she never dreamed that in her 2^nd year of working for our district she would be thrust into this type of situation.  Usually the role of public school nurses is invisible and that they serve to protect the health and safety of the students and staff in our schools.  She noted that if there is any silver lining to this pandemic it is that the role of our school nurses has been brought to the forefront by their dedication and caring for the students and staff they serve. 

 

Annie in her exuberance and backed by knowledge covered a multitude of topics related to Covid 19 in our District, State, Country and world here are some highlights.  She emphasized that with this growing pandemic “Adapt and Adjust” to changing conditions is absolutely essential and that we have a great staff of nurses in Minnetonka Schools and the multi-discipline approach by the District has put Minnetonka in a better position than surrounding districts.  She stated that Minnetonka has stressed Social Distancing, required face coverings, hand washing, cleaning and sanitizing, venting with heppi filtering, quarantining of positive covid cases and safeguards of transmission from the get-go.

 

She highlighted Covid 19 from the World down to our district saying that we were now at 54.3 million with 1.3 deaths in the world and the U.S. is having 150,000 cases and over 1,180 deaths a day.  If projections hold there will be over 10-million cases every 21 days in the world!  The U.S. is slated to have 11,000,000 cases and currently leads all countries.  Minnesota although better prepared than adjacent states now has 231,018 active cases and 7,044 deaths with the fastest growth in the 20-24 age range.  Annie compared the Flu to Covid and said that the flu‘s incubation is 1-4 days while covid is 1-14; Flu hospitalization is 2% while Covid is 19%; and Flu deaths are 0.1% and Covid is 1-3.4%.

 

What can we do and what is the district doing?  If you come in contact with covid positive person quarantine yourself and get tested.  She explained the differences between Diagno testing and Antibody tests and recommended that everybody take advantage of the free saliva testing offered in Minnesota requesting swab test sent to your home.  They can be ordered by contacting the Minnesota Department of Health at https://learn.vaulthealth.com/state-of-minnesota/ for on-line forms to receive kits for your entire family and the turn around after delivery is 12 to 24 hours.

 

The district has set-up a dashboard for parents to keep them informed on all Covid cases, prevention methods and other information parents need to know.  The current Dashboard reads:

 

Annie suggests that the good news is that by April 2021 vaccines that are 90 – 94% effective should be available to the general public.  Annie then opened it to Q&A and there were many.  Annie also received much appreciation for her presentation and the great work she and the district is doing to cope with the pandemic.