The City of Willard is facing an inordinately high number of emergency runs with the coronavirus pandemic.
“In the last quarter, we’ve gotten 465 calls,” noted city manager James Pomerich. “That’s an increase of 125. So, it’s a pretty significant increase.”
Pomerich told members of city council that much of the increase is being attributed to COVID-19 by fire officials, including calls to local nursing homes.
“I think we are going to see a lot of other communities reaching out to us,” he pointed out, “and asking us to help with their EMS calls. We are probably going to see less and less help from people, as well as it is getting more difficult to staff people.
“We’re keeping up with everything,” Pomerich said. “Our employees are doing a good job.”
Council member James Johnson expressed some concern that city EMS doesn’t “spread itself too thin while answering calls from neighboring communities for assistance.