Wasatch County’s decision to issue a “Stay at Home” order went into effect on Wednesday. Wasatch County Manager Mike Davis shares his thoughts
Wasatch County Manager Mike Davis says the high rate of COVID-19 cases helped the county make the difficult decision to issue the ‘Stay at Home’ order.
“Our rate of infected individuals is in the top 50 in the United States for our population, in the state we’re only second to Summit County,” Davis continued. “So, we’ve worked very closely with Summit County and we felt that the two of us together implementing similar type health orders can better prevent the spread of this virus or at least slow it down to the extent possible.”
Davis said ahead of issuing the county ‘Stay at Home’ order they sought input from municipality leaders and business leaders in the community.
“Recognizing that they would take a significant hit with their employees and business not operating at the full levels. Surprisingly we got very good support from the local businesses wanting to get through this as quickly as possible,” Davis explained. “Recognizing that if we can bring things down early on that could help us get back to normal later on. So, there was a lot of cooperation—of course there are some that don’t agree, and I understand that—but mostly we’ve received positive feedback.”
Davis says reaction to the order has mostly been positive, and points out the county has already seen how following the ‘Stay at Home’ order has worked for Wasatch High students. Nearly 2,400 students were placed into social isolation for two weeks after a student tested positive for the virus.
“That’s a difficult population to understand and be able to work with," Davis said. "They basically had a stay at home order from the very beginning for them. We were so pleased with how well they worked at it. Of course, it wasn't perfect, but it was good enough we only have one other individual right now that has the virus in that age group. So, we’re kind of excited that worked that well. So, we’ve got to get people to stay at home as best they can and keep their distance and we can calm this down.”
The county will be monitoring the effectiveness of the order and re-evaluating, although it can take two weeks to know the effectiveness of the order because of the virus incubation period. Davis said the county could modify or relax or increase restrictions depending on what they see. He says the county does not plan to have sheriff’s deputies issue citations now or in the future.
“We’ve had a lot of discussion about that," Davis continued. "That's a very extreme type of position we feel. Certainly, there may be recommendations, if they were to run into a large group of people, they may suggest to them that they really ought to split up. But we're not going to be issuing citations at this point.”
At the Wednesday meeting council also passed an ordinance to expand their ability to hold electronic meetings.
“Previously we had to have a (council member) present at a meeting to be able to have remote connections and this allows for all the participants to be remote connected," Davis explained. "That was our first meeting, we’ve got a little bit of work to do on that. We want to be able to have the public be able to give us input during those meetings, so that when we get to regular type of business we can have public input whether it’s land-use or whatever it is.”
Public comments for upcoming meetings are being accepted via email to PublicComment@Wasatch.Utah.Gov , the agenda is usually posted a few days before a Wednesday council meeting. Davis says the electronic meeting ordinance can be repealed but it does not have a sunset date.
