More than 4,500 Utahns have died due to COVID. 23 of those were Summit County residents and 34 of them were from Wasatch County. While that’s too many families who have been affected by their losses, Summit County Health Dept. Director Phil Bondurant believes quick action by Summit County officials helped saved even more lives.
“You look at some of these other states and cities and understanding that they are more populated...we were able to take action early on,” Bondurant explained. “And I still believe that the efforts of Summit County, Summit County Health Department, Park City, our sister agencies on the east side, Coalville, Kamas, all of the individuals, elected officials involved their action that they took, definitely save lives. And we would have loved to have been able to report a zero deaths in Summit County, zero deaths across the state. But unfortunately, that's probably unrealistic.”
Bondurant says certainly, things could have been done differently. But given the information available at the time, he believes the right decisions were made and the county is moving forward.
“I think we're in a really good spot,” Bondurant said. “We've done a lot of good things in the county; we've made a lot of tough decisions. And I'm glad to put this behind us. I'm excited for what's to come. I'm hopelessly optimistic as I tend to be with everything. It's really marvelous that in just two years, we've been able to see the beginning, middle and somewhat of an end to a pandemic. And really, that's due to modern medicine and, and the science behind everything.”
What the future brings remains to be seen. Medical professionals he says expect new variants, but they may be less severe in terms of symptoms and outcomes.
“Ultimately, viruses have taught us, especially during COVID-19, if there's anything that we can expect, it's the unexpected,” Bondurant said. “The best thing we can do is continue to advocate for people remaining up to date on their COVID vaccines and continuing to assess their own risk based on any underlying health conditions or other situations in their life that may present a greater risk.”
He expects that we will also see seasonal boosters of the MRNA technology combined with the flu shot and some of the antiviral medications could eventually be available over the counter.
