After-Action Report/ 2020 Pickaway County Fair

Improvement Plan (AAR/IP)

2020 Pickaway County Fair

Real world Event | Date: June 20th, 2020 – June 27th, 2020

This report was generated throughout the duration of the 2020 Pickaway County Fair and in the
two weeks following the event. This After-Action Report/Improvement Plan (AAR/IP) covers
the 2020 Pickaway County Fair Report. This Real-World Event was a planned event held in
Pickaway County. The purpose of this report is to analyze event results, identify strengths to be
maintained and built upon, identify potential areas for further improvement, and support
development of corrective actions.

Event Overview 1 Pickaway County Public Health

 After-Action Report/ 2020 Pickaway County Fair
Improvement Plan (AAR/IP)

REAL WORLD EVENT OVERVIEW

Event Name 2020 Pickaway County Fair

Event Dates June 20th, 2020 – June 27th, 2020

This was a real-world event that was planned in Pickaway County. The Pickaway
County Fair was from June 20th until June 27th, 2020. Over the span of 8 days,
Scope hundreds of people attended the Fair. These people included Pickaway County
residents and residents of counties from across the state of Ohio.

Mission
Prevention, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery as applicable
Area(s)

Threat or
COVID-19 Disease Spread
Hazard

The Pickaway County Fair brings in individuals from surrounding counties and
states, to come together for the love of showing animals, junior fair activities, as
well as enjoying rides and fair food. Pickaway County Public Health, Pickaway
Event Catalyst County Emergency Management Agency, Pickaway County Fair Board,
Pickaway County Sheriff’s Office and the Pickaway County Commissioners were
involved in the planning of the event to ensure the safety of residents and event
goers due to the threat of spreading the COVID-19 virus.

Pickaway County Public Health (PCPH)

P.O. Box 613/ 110 Island Road
Lead Agency
Circleville, OH 43113
740-477-9667

Pickaway County Public Health Point of Contact:

Baylie Karmie- Emergency Preparedness Coordinator
Pickaway County Public Health
Primary Point
P.O. Box 613/110 Island Road
of Contact
Circleville, OH 43113
Phone: (740) 477 – 9667
bkarmie@pchd.org

Event Overview 2 Pickaway County Public Health

After-Action Report/ 2020 Pickaway County Fair
Improvement Plan (AAR/IP)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This After-Action Report/Improvement Plan (AAR/IP) covers the 2020 Pickaway County Fair
Report. This Real-World Event was a planned event held in Pickaway County. The purpose of
this report is to analyze event results, identify strengths to be maintained and built upon, identify
potential areas for further improvement, and support development of corrective actions.

Major Strengths
The major strengths identified during this incident are as follows:

1. Planning and organizing

o The planning process for the 2020 Pickaway County Fair was a very thorough and
extensive process. Pickaway County Public Health spent many hours in
preparation and in communication with Ohio Department of Health to ensure the
proper guidance and interpretation of the regulations for an event of such
magnitude during a global pandemic.
2. Collaboration
o PCPH collaborated on a consistent basis with Pickaway County Emergency
Management Agency (PCEMA) to try and ensure that the guidance for the fair
board was solidified before the planning meeting on June 4th, 2020
o PCPH and PCEMA collaborated with the Pickaway County Fair Board, Pickaway
County Sherriff’s Office and the Pickaway County Commissioners to answer any
questions they had and to present the guidance and precautions that were expected
to be put into effect to protect the residents of Pickaway County and any other
attendees of the Pickaway County Fair.
3. PCPH follow up during event
o PCPH attended the 2020 Pickaway County Fair on multiple occasions by multiple
staff members from the Environmental Health Division, the Emergency
Preparedness division and the Clinical Health Division. During these site visits,
PCPH was observing and making recommendations of things that needed to be
corrected in order to protect people from enhancing the spread of COVID-19.

Primary Areas for Improvement

Throughout the event, several opportunities for improvement were identified. The primary areas
for improvement are as follows:

1. Failure to execute from Pickaway County Fair Board.

o The Fair Board had great plans to ensure safety, but the safety measures were not
implemented in a way that was effective.
2. Food vendors
o Pickaway County Public Health met with a Fair Board Member, during this
meeting, the expectations and consequences were discussed by PCPH

Analysis 3 Pickaway County Public Health

After-Action Report/ 2020 Pickaway County Fair
Improvement Plan (AAR/IP)

Environmental Health Director, Jere Marks. The director of concessions stated

that he understood the expectations that were put into place due to the COVID-19
pandemic. However, these expectations were not adhered to. There were food
vendors that allowed condiment bottles to be set out for use by any attendee of the
fair. This action allows for a significant amount of spread of COVID-19 disease
from fair attendee to fair attendee.
3. Masks
o Fair Staff and food vendors were observed on Wednesday, June 24th, 2020 by the
EH Division. During, this observation visit, it was noted that the staff and food
vendors were not adhering to the mask wearing guidance provided directly from
PCPH to the Fair Board members in the planning meeting on June 4th, 2020.
o PCPH Director of Nursing followed up on this observation on Friday, June 26th,
2020 and provided additional regulations to Fair staff and Board members
reminding them of the mask wearing requirements. It was observed on Saturday,
June 28th, and Sunday, June 29th, that the requirements were not being
unanimously followed to protect fair attendees and staff from the potential spread
of the COVID-19 virus.

PICKAWAY COUNTY FAIR PLANNING MEMBERS ANALYSIS

The following sections provide an overview of the performance related to each division within
Pickaway County Public Health as well as the Pickaway County Fair Board, highlighting
strengths and areas for improvement.

PCPH Environmental Health Division:

Strengths
Strength 1: The Environmental Health Division of PCPH feels that a meeting before the event
started would have been helpful. Expectations and penalties for violations (such as removal from
the event) could have been communicated to the food vendors. This would have helped Area of
Improvement 2, detailed below, as we would have had an enforcement plan.
Strength 2: The environmental health division actively attended the fair to notify the Fair Board
of faulty practices that were taking place during the event that were going to attribute to the
spread of COVID-19 if they were not corrected.

Areas for Improvement

The following areas require improvement:

Analysis 4 Pickaway County Public Health

After-Action Report/ 2020 Pickaway County Fair
Improvement Plan (AAR/IP)

Area for Improvement 1: The environmental health division of PCPH has requested that there
needs to be more contact between PCPH environmental health division and the event planners.

Area for Improvement 2: The EH division should strive to be less lenient on their enforcement
of requirements pertaining to the guidance they provided several times throughout the planning
and execution of the event.

Analysis: Moving forward with the planning of future events during the COVID-19 pandemic or
other infectious disease outbreaks, PCPH environmental health division will be stricter with the
enforcement of requirements that they are giving organizations to follow. The EH division will
also be more proactive in communication with the Fair Board prior to the event.

PCPH Clinical Health Division:

Strengths
Strength 1: The Clinical Health Division of PCPH attended every planning meeting in the
process of the fair and provided extensive guidance on what precautions needed to be taken.
Strength 2: The Director of Nursing participated in weekly ODH calls to apply advice and
guidance from the State to the planning of the Fair event.
Strength 3: The PCPH infectious disease nurse participated in epidemiologist work groups to
apply guidance from other members of the region and state to better prepare for the 2020
Pickaway County Fair and how to use the data from the fair to prepare for other events.

Areas for Improvement

Area for Improvement 1: PCPH Clinical Health division should strive to be stricter with the
guidance they are giving the Fair Board to apply to their events. The clinical health division will
follow-up more to ensure the Fair Board is properly executing the event.
Area for Improvement 2: The PCPH clinical health division will work to put out more
education regarding the importance of masks and social distancing prior to events, so that people
are more informed of the threat of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.
Analysis: Moving forward with the planning of future events during the COVID-19 pandemic or
other infectious disease outbreaks, PCPH clinical health division will be stricter with the
enforcement of requirements that they are giving organizations to follow. The Clinical Health
division will also be more proactive in communicating with the public on education prior to the
event.

Analysis 5 Pickaway County Public Health

After-Action Report/ 2020 Pickaway County Fair
Improvement Plan (AAR/IP)

PCPH Emergency Preparedness Division:

Strengths
Strength 1: The Emergency Preparedness Division of PCPH attended every planning meeting in
the process of the fair and provided extensive guidance on what precautions needed to be taken.
Strength 2: The Emergency Preparedness Coordinator (EPC) of PCPH participated in PIO calls
and workgroups as well as ODH calls to apply guidance from the state and from other regional
members to the planning for the event.

Areas for Improvement

Area for Improvement 1: The PCPH Emergency Preparedness Division, in future events,
should be more actively documenting the Fair experience to have more evidence to provide in
the AAR/IP discussion.
Area for Improvement 2: The EPC will collaborate with the Director of Nursing to seek out
more educational materials pertaining to the safety of wearing masks and social distancing.
Analysis: In the future, the emergency preparedness division will be more involved in the event
to have documentation for areas of improvement and strengths. The EPC will also provide more
guidance and educational pieces to the community in advance, so they are informed before major
events take place.

Pickaway County Fair Board:

Strengths
Strength 1: The Pickaway County Fair Board attended the planning meeting on June 4th and was
prepared to present the layout of their event and willing to coordinate with PCPH and PCEMA to
plan the event.

Areas for Improvement

Area for Improvement 1: The Pickaway County Fair Board failed to implement the
requirements that were set in the planning meeting.
Area for Improvement 2: It was discussed in the planning meeting on June 4th, that the Fair
Board would have one designated entrance and exit to prevent transmission of COVID-19, but it
was observed that this was not occurring during the event. For example, there were several exits
and entrances through the same area which causes tight clusters of people in a close area which
increases the risk of spreading COVID-19.
Area for Improvement 3: It was observed that the staff at each entrance was not wearing masks
or using hand sanitizer between customers that they were handling money from. This is a major
fault because they are encountering every person who enters and exits the fair and could have
been spreading COVID-19 to each person they did not wear a mask around or did not sanitize
between.

Analysis 6 Pickaway County Public Health

After-Action Report/ 2020 Pickaway County Fair
Improvement Plan (AAR/IP)

Area for Improvement 4: The fair staff did not follow the mask requirement provided by the
State in their Fair event guidance.
Area for Improvement 5: It was discussed in the planning meeting on June 4th, that the Fair
Board would not allow bleacher seating to prevent people from sitting closely and potentially
spreading COVID-19. However, bleacher seating was encouraged at the event and there was
limited social distancing occurring in these settings.
Analysis: PCPH had contacted the Fair Board to ask them to correct the mask wearing situation
and the bleacher settings, and the correction did not occur. In future events, Pickaway County
Fair Board needs to adequately execute the plan that was set in the collaborative planning
meeting to protect the fair attendees and their staff from the spread of COVID-19 or any other
infectious diseases that may occur in the future.

CONCLUSION
The 2020 Pickaway County Fair provided the Pickaway County Health Department with real-
world experience working through difficult issues and developing the skills to properly allow for
major events during a pandemic situation. All PCPH staff were aware of the precautions that
were in the place for the fair and handled complaints and cases as they came flooding in
throughout the event and after the fact. They provided answers with factual documentation and
utilized the proper programs to ensure proper protocol as the plan stated. On the PCPH agency
side of the event there were several areas of improvements that came from this event and will be
improved upon once we test these capabilities and functions again.

For the Pickaway County Fair Board and people executing the fair planning and event, there was
a lack of implementation on the precautions taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This
failure is shown in the number of concerns people had about having the fair during a global
pandemic and it is also reflected in the data showing the spike of cases due to the COVID-19
pandemic. Pickaway County had roughly 19 cases directly from people who attended the fair
and 3 cases from family members who had attended the fair and passed it on to them. There was
a death that may have been linked to a person in fair attendance, but the investigation of cases is
still ongoing.

PCPH staff spent a significant amount of time collaborating for the planning of the 2020
Pickaway County Fair as well as attending the fair consistently to let the Fair Board members
know where the failure to implement was occurring. There were few improvements made by the
Fair Board to correct their actions during the event, and these have been documented in the
improvement plan and will be discussed and applied to future events during the COVID-19
pandemic or other pandemic events that may occur in the future.

Analysis 7 Pickaway County Public Health

After-Action Report/ 2020 Pickaway County Fair
Improvement Plan (AAR/IP)

APPENDIX A: ACRONYMS
Table A.1: Acronyms

Acronym Meaning
AAR/IP After-Action Report/Improvement Plan
ASPR Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response
BP Budget Period
DOC Department Operations Center
EERF Exercise Event Review Form
EMA Emergency Management Agency
FE Functional Exercise
FSE Full-Scale Exercise
HPP Hospital Preparedness Program
ICS Incident Command System
MARCS Multi-agency Radio Communication System
ODH Ohio Department of Health
OPHCS Ohio Public Health Communication System
PCEMA Pickaway County Emergency Management Agency
PCPH Pickaway County Public Health
PPE Personal Protective Equipment
PHEP Public Health Emergency Preparedness
POC Point of Contact
SMART Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound
SFY State Fiscal Year

Appendix A: Acronyms A-1 Pickaway County Public Health

After-Action Report/ 2020 Pickaway County Fair
Improvement Plan (AAR/IP)

APPENDIX B: GRAPHIC

The following graph contains the community increase in the time frame of the 2020
Pickaway County Fair and other community events throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
The black box indicates the activity of COVID-19 cases during and after the fair.
This was a collaborative plan and a lot of time and effort was put into this from PCPH.
The execution of this plan was the biggest weakness as a county that has been identified
and it is reflected in the following data.

Appendix B: Graph B-1 Pickaway County Public Health