While Utah is entering the stabilization phase in the pandemic, the state health department is focusing efforts on hotspots.
Part of the state’s strategy to safely open up the economy includes identifying and responding to hotspots. State epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn says the Utah Health Department has created strike teams to address outbreaks in the state.
“These teams will consist of mobile testing teams, investigators to identify the exposure, and then support services to ensure that those who need to isolate in quarantine are able to do so,” Dunn said.
Strike teams will allow the state to focus resources to areas most impacted by COVID-19
“Identifying hotspots is something we've done from the beginning of this outbreak,” Dunn continued. “It's bread and butter public health in terms of responding to any infectious disease outbreak. For example, at the beginning we knew that Summit County was a hotspot and that's where all of the cases were at the initial part of this. Now we have certain neighborhoods in both Utah County in Salt Lake County that have high rates of infection. We're working with those local health departments to understand why and respond and stop the spread. The strike teams will be made up of state employees both a mix of logistics experts, medical experts, and epidemiologists both at the state and local levels so that we can appropriately respond to any of the hot spots.”
At Friday’s briefing Dr. Dunn said they had employed the first strike force at a residential facility in Utah County that serves intellectually disabled adults. Fifteen of the 40 residents have tested positive for COVID-19 as well as nine staff members.
“They don't typically have nursing level care there,” Dunn explained. “It is more of an intermediate care facility. Because of this spread of disease within the facility our strike team is providing that level of nursing care. In addition to medical supplies that they don't routinely stock there, including PPE, to be able to care for the ill residents in that facility and then also prevent further spread.”
Dunn says they’re also working to make these resources available to non-English speaking communities.
