Summit County Health Director Dr. Phil Bondurant is reporting that the county has been shifted back to a Moderate Transmission status.
The County Health Board heard that, and other good news, during the COVID-19 update at their regular meeting Monday. But Bondurant said there are still areas of concern.
Phil Bondurant told the health board the COVID numbers are trending in the direction they want. The county has seen a case decline in the past two weeks, and a positivity rate below 5 percent.
He did report that last week there were two bumps showing case increases, but he said that was likely due to the timing of reports from the lab. Bondurant said he thinks the counts will return to a plateau and then a decline.
Bondurant said the state is also reporting better news.
“The state as a whole is in incidence decline, which is interesting. We’re keeping a close eye on that. Governor Cox said last week that he believes that the state as a whole is on the back side of the Delta surge, which we keep our fingers crossed that he’s accurate. And as we move indoors, cause the weather is now cold, we’ll keep an eye on that conversation.”
Summit County recently recorded the county’s 18th death—a female between 65 and 85 years old. Most of Summit County’s cases are people 25 to 64 years old.
Bondurant added that state hospitalizations have also dropped, but the number is still higher than they’d like.
Summit County has not yet hit a threshold to require a mask mandate in the county’s schools. An Order of Constraint applied to elementary, junior high and middle schools would call for masks if a two percent 14-day positivity rate appears in a campus population of students, teachers and staff.
“I think right now Ecker Middle School is reporting 7 cases over the last 14 days, which is about .89 percent of their school population, so halfway there. But that is the highest number. Every other school of the schools that we’re monitoring are 4 cases or below. So the schools are still doing well. You can see that over the last 14 days, the 5-to-10-year-olds, we’ve had about 15 cases; 11-to-13-year-olds, seven, and 14-to-17, two cases. Now this isn’t saying these were in school. These are just school-age kids. We’re still seeing that the majority of the exposures that are coming out of that population—what, we’ll say 5 to 18—are occurring outside of schools, at least in Summit County.”
County epidemiologist Louise Saw also reported that of cases in the last 28 days, 265 were unvaccinated, and 91 were “breakthroughs” —vaccinated people who nevertheless have tested positive. She added that’s 91 out of 31,000 who have been vaccinated in the county.
Park City Hospital CEO Lori Weston said the hospital is seeing 4 to 6 COVID cases a day. While the COVID caseload had recently been crowding out other patients, Weston said they are starting to undertake a few more surgeries every week.
Last month, hospital authorities reported they had been seeing cases of COVID patients who were aggressive and violent, along with visitors refusing to obey hospital rules about masks and distancing.
Weston said they are seeing those cases two or three times a week.
She added that hospital staff are feeling the stress.
“We’ve lost a lot of nurses. We have two more ICU nurses that are actually leaving in the next couple of weeks that are gonna take more of a clinic-type of role, where they’re not doing face-to-face patient care, and just in the situation anymore. They don’t feel safe.”
On a related topic, Health Board Chairman Chris Cherniak asked if the county is working with the Sundance Film Festival on COVID protocols.
“I’m hearing from folks around town that I chat with, that they have concerns and questions about how you gonna make this work. You have multiple venues, with multiple points of ingress and egress to events and activities. And how you gonna enforce that?”
Bondurant said he is meeting with Sundance organizers weekly. He said he can’t disclose some details of what the festival is planning.
However, Sundance recently announced that all those attending in-person events at the 2022 Festival must have proof of vaccination. Attendees must also wear masks at all times indoors, or while in wait lines, tents, restrooms or other temporary structures.
Bondurant noted this comes while Vail requires vaccinations from indoor diners and their staff at the resort, and the Biden administration has announced vaccine mandates for businesses with over 100 employees.
“The risk is not gone. There is gonna be risk in everything we do for a number of years moving forward related to COVID. But we’re starting to see some of the wheels turn, and some things come into place and alignment, where individuals are being vaccinated. And really, as we’ve talked about, multiple times, that’s how we get back to what we would consider normal.”
Summit County Health Director Phil Bondurant.
