Some local residents gathered at 6 p.m. Wednesday night (April 15) to pray outside the Festus Manor Care Center, 627 Westwood South Drive, where there has been an outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
As of Wednesday, 16 residents had tested positive for the virus, and one resident had died from the illness, the Jefferson County Health Department reported.
Health Department Director Kelley Vollmar said the prayer gathering at Festus Manor violated the county’s stay-at-home order that remains in effect until further notice.
“I know there are good intentions involved, but it's just one misstep and you can end up with a much larger outbreak than you currently have,” she said.
According to the Facebook event created for the gathering, the event was hosted by Tammy Dickey and Chad Kent Smith.
“We probably had 50 cars,” Smith of Festus said. “Everybody stayed in their vehicles.”
Smith said he is a nondenominational minister and founder and director of Encounter Recovery Services.
He said he led the prayer to show support for staff and residents and allow residents’ loved ones to show their support.
Vollmar said she contacted Dickey around 11:40 a.m. the day of the event advising the organizers not to hold a gathering.
“I had personally spoken with Tammy Dickey (the morning of April 15) and reached out to the administration and the owners of the facility and asked them to not encourage people to (attend the event) and to try to do a virtual event,” Vollmar said.
She also said the Health Department offered to have the agency’s communication specialist Brianne Zwiener help the prayer vigil organizers hold a virtual event on Facebook, with no public gathering.
“I'm totally supportive of a prayer vigil,” she said. “I think they need the prayers and deserve the prayers, and the staff who have been working tirelessly deserve them, but on the flip side of that, is we are currently dealing with an outbreak at that facility, and we are trying to ensure that we keep everyone safe.”
Vollmar said Smith posted a Facebook Live video before the event saying the Health Department had asked him to encourage people not to come to the gathering. He can be seen in the video telling people not to come, but also winking at the same time.
Smith said no one from the Health Department contacted him and in hindsight he should not have winked.
“I don't want anybody thinking that I did not take the Health Department seriously,” he said.
Smith said he had a grandmother in the center for 10 years and knows the staff and wanted to pray for the staff and residents.
“I believe in the power of prayer,” he said. “I know that everybody says, ‘Well, you can pray from home, or you can pray from a distance.’ But again, this was meant to show love to these people who are in the heart of this pandemic.”
Smith said he believed that if people stayed in their cars and did not gather inside a building, he was complying with the stay-at-home order.
Vollmar said it can be frustrating trying to educate the public about staying home.
“To have somebody so blatantly mock a request that you have made, was disheartening,” she said.
Vollmar said there are law enforcement steps that can be taken to enforce the stay-at-home order.
She said the first step is a cease and desist request from the county counselor and the next step would be to seek charges.
“That is a class A misdemeanor to violate a stay-at-home order,” Vollmar said.
She said the Health Department might seek that option if public gatherings continue, but at this time, she plans to have a “serious conversation” with the prayer gathering organizers.
Smith said today (April 16) he received a call from Festus Police Chief Tim Lewis about the event, and Smith said he now understands the concerns both Lewis and Health Department officials have.
Lewis said Smith agreed to not hold any more gatherings.
“I encourage people to pray,” Lewis said. “We need all the help we can, but in this day and age, you don't want to draw people into an area that I think is the hotbed for COVID-19 in Jefferson County right now.”
Lewis said if the organizers hold more gatherings, the Police Department would “probably seek a legal remedy.”
As of Wednesday, the county had 144 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, including the 16 at Festus Manor, and the death at the nursing home is among the county’s three coronavirus-related deaths.
The outbreak at Festus Manor was first reported as six cases on Sunday (April 12).
Vollmar said Wednesday that 45 more residents and staff members from the nursing home had been tested for the coronavirus, and those results were pending.
