Even though Summit County has issued a new Health Order that lifts the Stay At Home directive, and aims to carefully re-open businesses, Council Member Roger Armstrong says there are still a number of challenges for county government, local business and the citizens.
Armstrong told KPCW that the re-opening under the new Health Order is likely going to be gradual.
“So I don’t think it’s gonna be like Friday morning at high school, 3o’clock, the doors are gonna get thrown open when the Order lands, and people are gonna rush out and start doing everything that they were doing in mid—January. I think there’s going to be an easing-in period.”
Armstrong said that Summit County, like the rest of the country and the world, is trying to find a balance between caring for the population that is vulnerable to the virus, and responding to those hurt by an economic shutdown.
“We’re starting to see some data coming out of hospitals, suggesting that the worst cases of this virus involve people that are obese, high blood pressure, have other kinds of conditions like diabetes. So if you’re one of those vulnerable members of the population, you probably want to stay home and continue to play things the way you have. If you’re not, you wanna make sure you ease your way back in. There have been extreme conditions that have hurt people economically—not just businesses, but workers and people that are living paycheck to paycheck. And unfortunately we have far more people in our society today that have to do that.”
Armstrong said there needs to be more testing, to find those residents who might not feel any symptoms, but have the virus and are spreading it to others.
“My biggest concern right now, on a going-forward basis, is that we still have consistent testing data. Testing could be being accomplished right now at a greater rate than it is. I think there’s been a dip. And part of that dip I think is because people aren’t feeling the effects as much. But I was surprised. We have a friend, who, during the surge testing last week who went to be tested, and had absolutely no symptoms and came up with a positive test.”
While Armstrong is a County Council Member, in private life he’s an entertainment industry attorney. And he’s seeing that segment of the economy slammed also by the impacts of COVID-19.
“We have a television series that films here in Utah. And the entire industry is trying to figure out how to get back to work. How do you do testing? There are insurance issues. If you’ve got a lead actor on a $100 million movie who goes down for two months because he gets sick with the virus, what do you do? You would normally turn to insurance for that purpose, and insurance companies are saying, “We can’t afford to cover that.”
And the virus is also affecting this year’s elections. There’s more talk nation-wide about voting by mail. At this week’s Council meeting, County Clerk Kent Jones said he’s recommending they go to the mail system, at least for the June 30th primary.
Armstrong agreed, noting that the county conducted three or four mail-in-voting elections long before the pandemic appeared.
“But it’s not as if it’s a shock to our system. I think we’ve kept limited physical voting in-person facilities open in our last three or four elections for those people that I think just like to do it that way. And I think now is the time under these circumstances where vote-by-mail makes all the sense in the world. We’re still gonna have to accommodate people with disabilities that for whatever reason can’t vote by mail. And we’ll have a way to do that.”
County Council Member Roger Armstrong.
