Emergency dispatchers in Mobile and Baldwin counties have begun quietly flagging the home addresses of confirmed COVID-19 patients in their computer systems, a practice local 911 officials say is meant to protect police officers, firefighters and paramedics from unknowingly walking into a house with an active infection.
Charlie McNichol, director of the Mobile County Communications District, which oversees the county’s 911 system, said he personally receives a daily list of addresses tied to confirmed COVID-19 cases from the Alabama Department of Public Health. Those addresses are then entered into the district’s computer-aided dispatch system, so that if a 911 call comes in from one of those locations, responding officers, firefighters or medics are automatically alerted that someone there has tested positive.
“We flag those in our [Computer Assisted Dispatch] system so if a call comes into one of the addresses for any first responders — fire, police or medical — we let them know that location is suspected of having a positive case,” McNichol said. “I think we owe that to our first responders. It doesn’t give us anyone’s name or any other personal information about the individual, it just lets us notify them that someone at that address has tested positive for COVID-19 so that they can have their guards up.”
Baldwin County 911 Director Joby Smith has confirmed his office is receiving similar information from state health officials, though he has said the data initially arrived more slowly than he would have liked. As case counts climbed this week, Mobile County had 61 confirmed COVID-19 cases and Baldwin County had 24, according to state figures.
The arrangement has drawn scrutiny from some residents and privacy advocates who question whether sharing addresses tied to a specific medical diagnosis runs afoul of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the federal law that protects patient health information. McNichol said attorneys for both the Mobile County Communications District and the state health department reviewed the policy before it was implemented, and that a similar arrangement between statewide 911 officials and public health authorities was worked out at the state level.
A spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Public Health has said the agency made the decision jointly with members of the state’s 911 board specifically to protect first responders, citing a state law that allows physicians and public health officials to notify a third party when there is a foreseeable risk of disease transmission. State guidance issued alongside the policy is intended to limit how the address information can be used once it reaches local dispatch centers.
Locally, McNichol said the flagged addresses aren’t shared outside the agency and are only visible to staff on a need-to-know basis tied to an active call, the same standard applied to other sensitive information already kept in the dispatch system, such as addresses with a history of frequent calls or other unique circumstances that first responders need to know about before they arrive.
Beyond the address-flagging system, Mobile County dispatchers have also started asking additional screening questions of nearly every 911 caller, regardless of the nature of the emergency. “In a medical emergency or not, dispatchers would always ask questions about medical history on the call, but even other types of calls like law enforcement, we’re asking the caller: ‘Has anyone at your address been sick or tested positive for COVID-19,'” McNichol said. “Most people voluntarily give that information to us, but even if they don’t for some reason, we’re certainly asking.”
The extra precautions come as concern grows statewide about first responders contracting the virus on the job. In Mobile, 28 police officers and firefighters have tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies through rapid serum blood tests, meaning their bodies have shown an immune response to the virus at some point, whether they are currently fighting it or have already recovered. City officials are continuing to test additional first responders as supplies allow. Similar concerns have surfaced elsewhere in Alabama; in Tuscaloosa, dozens of police officers and firefighters were pulled off duty after a single first responder tested positive, underscoring how quickly an outbreak within a department can strain public safety staffing.
Because police, firefighters and paramedics are considered essential personnel who interact with large numbers of people daily, health officials have treated them as a priority group for testing, similar to medical professionals, given the risk that an infected responder could spread the virus to colleagues and the public.
The Mobile County Sheriff’s Office is also working with public health officials to contain a cluster of COVID-19 cases at Mobile Metro Jail, where two corrections officers and one inmate have tested positive. Warden Trey Oliver said inmates who had contact with those individuals are being separated under a tiered quarantine system designed to limit further spread within the facility. Oliver said jail officials have access to COVID-19 tests but, because of limited supply, are currently only testing inmates who are showing symptoms.