Liberty County officials team up to make hand sanitizer for first responders, county employees

Bottles of hand sanitizer are on their way to first responders in Liberty County who are on the front line of the war against the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Unable to find them on store shelves, Pct. 1 Commissioner Bruce Karbowski, Klint Bush and county employees pooled their resources to fill 200 eight-ounce bottles. Another 150 bottles will be filled in the coming days.

Karbowski said they are being delivered to county employees and first responders who deal with the general public because they are the mostly likely people to come in contact with the Coronavirus infection as they handle money, documents and people.

“Most people are using gloves to avoid exposure, but we are short on gloves right now. The county has requests out but we aren’t receiving anything from distributors,” Karbowski said. “As public servants, they still have to be out there. We are protecting ourselves as much as we can.”

Like other county officials, Karbowski is hopeful that efforts made by County Judge Jay Knight and the Liberty County Office of Emergency Management to restrict gatherings and close government buildings will have some impact on the number of cases in Liberty County.

“We haven’t had a spike yet in positive cases. We have 18 tests that haven’t come back yet, so we will see how those turn out,” he said. “We’ve had 38 negative cases and two positive. I am preparing for it to get worse before it gets better.”

A second round of supplies for hand sanitizer are expected this week, Karbowski said, so first responders should have ample supplies to see them through the crisis.

“I ordered supplies two weeks ago. I knew we weren’t going to be able to keep up without having disinfectant. As a commissioner, I thought it was my duty and job to do as much as I could for the general health of the public,” he said. “Klint Bush was instrumental and jumped on board. He had a source for the plastic pump bottles. We will be out at the county barn again this week to start working on more.”