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Fisher Defends Summit County's COVID-19 Measures

Summit County

Summit County has received some backlash to its mandatory mask order, but county officials are defending their decision.

 

Responding Tuesday on KPCW, County Manager Tom Fisher said officials made their decisions to respond to an international crisis that has made its mark in Summit County.

 

“We’ve got a pandemic that’s working it’s way through globally,” he said. “We’re seeing rising caseloads all over the country. Utah is, unfortunately, part of the leadership of that in the United States in caseload. And we have to do something locally in order to react to this.”

 

He noted not everyone will agree with the county, and that’s also reflected in the national debate over COVID policy.

 

“We’re following very sound advice, both from the CDC and from the state leadership about this,” he said. “We’ve conferred with state leadership on the solutions that we’ve put in place, in fact have gotten those approved. And so we’re gonna continue on that track until we feel that there’s a different track to be taken. And I know that there’s differences of opinion within the county about that. And those can be expressed. And we’ll take those into account.”

 

On a related item, the Park City and Summit County bus systems are still operating, though on a more limited basis as the economy tries to reopen. 

 

Fisher said he’s ridden the bus a couple of times, while otherwise driving to Coalville on occasion and working from home.

 

“It’s still a great way to get around,” he said. “They’re certainly following the mask order, and patrons are asked to follow that Mask Order as well. They are encouraging distancing on the bus as much as possible. That has been able to happen just because we haven’t had a lot of ridership. I think we’re starting to see that ridership go up as more people are back to work, because there are a lot of people that are dependent on that bus system for getting back and forth to work. We have reduced services to kinda react to both a downturn in revenue, but also because ridership has been lower. But we’re looking at that every day to see at what point and what triggers we would push that service back up and provide more as the workforce needs it.”

Known for getting all the facts right, as well as his distinctive sign-off, Rick covered Summit County meetings and issues for 35 years on KPCW. He now heads the Friday Film Review team.
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