Summit County health officials, who feel they’re now able to ease into a re-opening of the area’s economy, came before the County Council Wednesday with an extended and modified Public Health Order.
The Order was set to take effect on May 1st.
County Health Director Rich Bullough said the Order is based on the “Utah Leads Together 2.0” program of Governor Gary Herbert, who was also expected to announce that the state is moving from a Red status, or High Risk; to Orange Status and Moderate Risk.
Bullough said it’s stunning to think that it was just over a month ago that the county announced its emergency lockdown order.
He said that since then, the community and local businesses have done a remarkable job in knocking down the spread of COVID-19.
“We’ve gone from a time when we were seeing somewhere in the ballpark of 20 to 30 percent of all COVID-19 tests coming back positive. We were seeing increases of 20 to even 50 cases per day. We had one of the highest rates in the entire nation of any county. We are now in a situation where we went days without a new case. Today we had two new cases.”
Bullough added it’s good news that locally the number of recovered patients with COVID vastly outnumbers the new cases they’re recording.
He added that they’ve conducted about 3400 tests recently, and less than 2 percent of those tested came out positive. Still, Bullough said that the virus is a regional issue, and Summit County is still surrounded by other areas where case numbers are surging.
County Environmental Health Director Phil Bondurant said while the new order is based on Governor Herbert’s program, they relied on local business sector representatives to make recommendations about their specific areas.
“Over the course of a really short order of time, our business communities were able to not only go through the plan, which itself is almost a 30-page document, but go through that plan, identify where the risks specific to their sector might be, and then build upon that in a responsible way that not only limits the spread of COVID, but also allows them to operate and begin getting their feet back underneath them.”
He said that businesses went above and beyond in the past month to support the county’s efforts. But Bondurant said they know how difficult the lockdown was for employers.
And the county needed the perspective of the business people.
“We as public health people understand public health. We understand the pandemic response. We understand the components that lead to the decisions that need to be made. And we understand the data that suggests the decisions that should be made. But we’re not industry-sector representative professionals. We know a little bit maybe about each sector, but not enough to speak on behalf of them as to what can or cannot be done to help them be successful as we begin to remove restrictions around different prohibitions.”
Also on Wednesday’s agenda, the Council voted on their Local Emergency Declaration, extending it from May 1st to September 1st Deputy County Attorney Dave Thomas said that, formally, the Declaration makes the county eligible to receive state or federal aid.
At the same time, Bullough said it’s still clear that we have an emergency.
“And we are indeed still in an emergency. While our data are favorable at this point in time, we are anticipating changes in the data as we ease. And we are certainly anticipating changes in the data as we enter fall and winter. And so we will be extending that Emergency Declaration.”
He said that individuals still have an obligation to follow precautions, such as social distancing.
“Masks will still be recommended, or in some cases, required. Social gatherings will be limited to 20 or less during this Orange phase. The governor’s plan doesn’t allow gatherings greater than 20 until we transition into the low-risk Yellow phase, and even then, it’s 50. It isn’t until there is a vaccine, and we’re entering what the governor is calling the “new normal” are we allowed to exceed 50. So it’s not gonna be life as usual, but it’s gonna be life closer to than what we’ve had in the last month.”
Summit County Health Director Rich Bullough.
