Loudoun Now for March 4, 2020

n LOUDOUN

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n LEESBURG

VOL. 5, NO. 16

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n PUBLIC SAFETY

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n OBITUARIES

n PUBLIC NOTICES

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County Leaders Launch Coronavirus Outreach; Urge Caution, Not Panic BY KARA C. RODRIGUEZ AND NORMAN K. STYER

Is the coronavirus here already? We don’t know. Should you be panicked? No. Prudently cautious? Yes. Oh, and leave the face masks to the professionals who will need them—they won’t shield you from infection. That was the message offered by Loudoun County Public Health Director Dr. David Goodfriend during a Tuesday morning briefing to Leesburg’s Daybreak Rotary Club, part of a public communication ramp-up intended to stem public fears that have generated a run on hand sanitizer, bottled water and even toilet paper at area stores in recent days. As of Tuesday, more than 91,000 people worldwide had been infected and more than 3,000 had died from COVID-19, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of those cases have occurred overseas, primarily in mainland China, and have also affected portions of Italy, Iran, South Korea, and Japan. But, as the virus has continued its worldwide spread, more U.S.-originated cases are being reported. Goodfriend said there already could be cases in our region, but patients haven’t been tested for the virus so far because of a shortage of testing kits. “With those one-offs that we’re hearing about in New York, Rhode Island, et cetera, easily there are other cases around and there may be cases in the National Capital region. We just haven’t tested for it,” he said. “Just because we don’t know about it

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MARCH 5, 2020

Public Defenders Ask for Equal Pay with Prosecutors BY RENSS GREENE

rgreene@loudounnow.com

“For us, the next plane coming into Dulles could bring in whatever,” Goodfriend said. “The county, I think, is in a good position for it.” And he said the county is better prepared than it has been for previous outbreaks, with a new hospital and more emergency department and urgent care capabilities. “And we’ve learned a lot both from H1N1 and the 2014 Ebola, which put a real strain on the hospitals even though it didn’t impact a lot of people, it took a lot of resources at the hospital level to deal with Ebola,” Goodfriend said.

When someone is accused of a crime in Loudoun, and can’t afford to spend thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars defending themselves in court, they turn to the Office of the Public Defender. But the attorney who represents them will likely be paid much less than the prosecutor facing them— and in many cases, too little to stay in the job. As county supervisors begin work on Loudoun’s next annual budget, local attorneys—many of them current or former public defenders—are asking the board to supplement public defenders’ salaries, to pay them the same as prosecutors. “I think it’s the best job that I’ve ever had,” said Kelly King, a former public defender. “It was a job that I carried with me 24 hour a day, that I took home at night thinking about clients, that I woke up in cold sweat thinking about the responsibility that I carried in that office.” That responsibility, she said, included concern for their liberty, their well-being, and their futures.

CORONAVIRUS continues on page 47

EQUAL PAY continues on page 46

Renss Greene/Loudoun Now

Worries over COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, have left store shelves empty of hand sanitizer and sanitizing wipes, as shown by the depleted display in the Leesburg Target.

doesn’t mean it is not here.” Goodfriend’s been down this road before. Over his two decades leading Loudoun’s Health Department, he’s dealt with public fears over outbreaks of malaria (2002), H1N1 (2009) and even Ebola (2014). “We’re fortunate being in Loudoun County … that having Dulles Airport here and then the National Capital Region, we’re a high-risk community so the county is always prepared,” he said. While most communities rarely have to think about pandemic-level planning, Loudoun’s leaders know anything can happen.

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