Summit County’s Health Director says that the county is doing well at handling COVID-19—compared, anyway, to surrounding areas, and after the surge during Thanksgiving.
But Rich Bullough told this week’s meeting of the Council of Governments that the community still has to be careful, with another major holiday coming up.
Bullough also told the COG group what to expect with the arrival of vaccines.
Bullough said that Covid incident rates are still higher than they want. But the numbers are winding down after Thanksgiving, which is just what they expected.
He said Summit County’s incidence rate is half of that in surrounding counties.
“Right today, 48 per 100,000, 13 percent positivity. Compare that to 82 per 100,000 in Wasatch, 26 percent positivity, 91 per 100,000 in Utah County, 24 percent positivity, 71 per 100,000 in Salt Lake, 21 percent positivity, and the state is at 77 per 100,000, 22 percent positivity.”
He said that Summit shares a distinction with one other county in the state.
“It’s interesting to note that the two counties that issued early face-covering orders, and begin messaging and communicating around that—those being Summit and Grand County—have the lowest rates and the lowest positivity. There’s obviously a lot of other factors that could be influencing that. But we are really about half, those two counties about half of what we’re seeing in other areas of the state.”
However, Bullough told local government officials at the COG session that he’s concerned about a Christmas surge.
“It’s a hard time to have restrictions in place. But it’s the critical time. The Intensive Care Units in our hospitals across the state within the system remain above 90 percent occupied. It doesn’t leave a lot of capacity for an additional surge.”
On a related topic, Bullough said they’re beginning a new phase with the arrival of vaccines, but there’s still a long ways to go.
He said they’re expecting the first shipment in Summit County on the week of Dec. 28th. But it will be a tiny amount, about 100 doses.
“Not enough to vaccinate our critical employees, including teachers. Not enough to fully vaccinate First Responders and others. So this is gonna trickle in. And I just wanna let people know, honestly, that it’s gonna be a slow process. We’re gonna hit some hurdles. The public is gonna be frustrated. We’re doing our very best to begin the messaging around that.”
He said it’s likely that the general public won’t see the vaccines in any great quantities until late spring or early summer.
Organizing the vaccinations will be somewhat complicated since they’re delivered in two doses. If it’s the Moderna vaccine, he noted, those are 28 days apart.
Bullough said they plan to set up vaccination centers in multiple locations.
“Try to assure that they’re on transportation routes. Target specific populations that are at risk and that have been disparately affected. And then obviously target those priority populations.”
Summit County Health Director Rich Bullough, who said he’s hoping that by early summer, the shots will be available in groceries and pharmacies.
