Wasatch County Council meet Wednesday evening to hear from emergency managers about how they are proceeding during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the Wasatch County Council’s special meeting on Wednesday, council chair Danny Goode assured residents that Wasatch County elected officials are receiving and acting upon their information from experts and state officials including the World Health Organization, the CDC, Utah Department of Health, Utah’s Governor and other elected leaders, and the County Health Department. Goode also took a moment in the meeting to emphasize a portion of the Economic Recovery Plan released by the state earlier this week.
“To reach a less than one-to-one transmission rate, Utah must have no more than 800 to 1,000 new statewide infections on or before April 30, 2020, with the number of new cases declining from that point forward,” Goode continued. “To reach that goal, Utah must continue the aggressive mitigation efforts currently in place to protect healthcare capacity and vulnerable citizens. That is our social distancing, that is trying to limit your interactions with people to only essential services like a trip to the grocery store or emergency doctor visits or gas station. We do have businesses that are still open in Wasatch County. It is safe to go to say the drive throughs and that sort of thing. Call the business that you want to do business with, see if their open, they’ll talk you through what they have adjusted. A lot of the businesses have adjusted to still being partially open.”
Goode also gave a brief response to the stay at home order given by Summit County.
“Wasatch County has not issued such an order, but I will say that the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor told us on a conference call yesterday that this is an hour by hour, and minute by minute situation,” Goode said. “So, we’ll take into consideration what Summit County has done and what other counties in the state of Utah have done. We’ll try to follow the guidance of all of the experts that we talked about.”
At the meeting council also heard from the Health Department’s Emergency Response Coordinator, Lewis Hastings. Hasting’s explained the department meets daily to review objectives, coordinate and discuss ideas. Additionally, they participate in conference calls with the Utah Department of Health and meetings with community stake holders.
“We are constantly monitoring the guidance that is coming out from CDC and UDOH to help us to determine what our best practices are moving forward,” Hastings explained. “How can we best serve our community? So, we're looking at the research. We're looking at the guidance documents and trying to make the best decisions we can based on good science, good information. We’re constantly in meetings, we’re constantly talking and discussing. Trying to identify the best solutions that we can to help mitigate our response to this virus.”
Wasatch County Emergency Management Director Jeremy Hales reports the department helps the county deal with emergencies and disasters through a variety of means, including helping with incident command structures, responding to calls helping those who need extra resources and helping maintain critical infrastructure.
“We have Chevron pipeline and we also have a Dominion gas pipeline that comes through here,” Hales continued. “A week ago today, I was in connection with these folks making sure that those pipelines were working. There was no leaks or anything like that would harm any of our people in Wasatch County. We also worked with several of our special service districts and all of our critical infrastructures. Those folks that provide communication, power, water, those resources there to make sure that all those systems are up and operational. If they need stuff, further assistance, we work with our state Division of Emergency Management Liaison and connect any resources that we may need from outside of there.”
Wasatch County had 16 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, that number was the same as Tuesday’s report meaning no new cases on Wednesday.
