Herbert, Dunn Stress Guidelines as Kane County Sees
4 New COVID-19 Cases This Week
By Josh Warburton and @KanabCovid19
In a press conference last week Gov Herbert asked Utah State Epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn whether Salt Lake county’s mask ordinance caused its case count to decline. Dr. Dunn stated: “About 2 weeks after the mask mandate went into place, we saw a really sharp decline. That is also contributing to our overall state-wide decline in cases. For most of the pandemic, Salt Lake county has contributed to about 50% of all our deaths statewide, and now they are at about 40-45% of cases statewide. So they are dropping quicker than our surrounding jurisdictions across the state.”
Gov Herbert also asked Dr. Dunn how COVID-19 compared to the flu. Dr. Dunn stated that COVID-19 is more infectious and more deadly than the flu. She stated that in the last 5 months, COVID-19 has caused twice the hospitalizations and 5 times more deaths than the flu season did last year in 8 months.
Gov Herbert also asked about the long-term health impacts. Dr. Dunn stated that although there is only a few months of data, the health department knows there are individuals who have problems breathing, and engaging in exercise and activity that they engaged in prior to COVID-19 for some weeks after having the illness.
Gov Herbert stated: “My concern is not only the deadliness and the infectious rate of COVID-19, but the potential long-term residual impacts where it hurts people’s lungs, sense of smell and taste takes a long time to come back, others fear that some will never get it back. We are learning about the long-term impacts which were somewhat unknown but that cause us concern. This is not like the typical flu. It’s worse than the flu.”
Gov Herbert also asked Dr. Dunn to explain how it is determined that a person has died of COVID-19. He stated that some people believe that hospitals are inclined to make it a COVID-19 death even if it’s marginal because they get paid more money if it’s a COVID-19 death. Dr. Dunn stated that “The health department is notified of every individual who has COVID-19 and passes away. We work with the clinicians and our medical examiner to determine the cause of death. So just because someone has COVID-19 when they pass away does not mean that they will be counted as a death due to COVID-19. We actually investigate those cases to make sure that the cause of death is related to COVID-19 so that if that individual has not had COVID-19, they would not have passed away. So all of our deaths are specifically due to COVID-19. I am very confident that we are capturing the deaths accurately.”
This week Kane county added 4 new cases for a total of 56. This is a significant improvement compared to the previous weeks. There are now 35 active cases, 1 in 226. This number excludes recovered cases, which is anyone who is 3 weeks post-infection. Kane county has doubled in case-numbers in 18.5 days, down from 13 days last week. All the face coverings, hand washing, and social distancing are working according to Gov Herbert and Dr. Dunn during last week’s press conference.
Gov Herbert stated: “We know that the best way to prevent the spread of the virus. This is not new. I know we sound like a broken record, but until everyone does it, I guess we’ll keep mentioning it and that is to practice social distancing, which is defined as 6 feet from one another. If you can’t keep your distance, wear a mask. You should stay home when you’re sick, that’s a “duh” moment but too often in the past when you’re sick we’ve pushed ourselves and gone to work. We have to be extra careful today because of COVID-19. So don’t go to work when you’re sick. And last but not least, you should wash your hands frequently. If you combine all those together we have a good chance of reducing and slowing the virus as we see happening now. Let’s make sure we continue, in fact, we should redouble our efforts to make sure we do that.”
“76.4% of Utahns who have died from COVID-19 have had at least one underlying health condition. I suggest to all of us that we have a moral obligation, whether we have underlying health conditions or not, to in fact show the respect for our neighbors that we ought to by practicing appropriate protocols including wearing a mask. As Utahns that moral responsibility behooves all of us to do the best we can. I have been surprised that wearing a mask has become a political issue. It shouldn’t be political at all, it’s really good science, it’s good sense. And it does help us protect ourselves as well as our neighbors from getting the virus for whatever impact it will have. We know that it impacts people differently, we’ve seen young, healthy people get impacted who have a tough time, we have old people who have recovered, but the statistics show us that the volume of vulnerable populations, the elderly and those who have underlying health conditions, are most impacted. Let’s all do our part as good citizens of this great state to help slow the spread of this coronavirus and protect our neighbors.”
You can find Gov Herbert’s press conference at https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=895815110928877. Additionally, there is a presentation from Dr. Abbott from Brigham University on the science of masks. You can see this study at https://pws.byu.edu/covid-19-and-masks.
For information about COVID-19 and case numbers, visit the Southwest Utah Public Health Department at https://swuhealth.org/covid/ and the UDOH’s COVID-19 website at https://coronavirus.utah.gov/. The Kane County COVID-19 Task Force publishes local information at https://kane.utah.gov/gov/dept/sheriff/emergency-services/coronavirus/. Locally the Facebook group Kanab Covid19 (https://www.facebook.com/groups/kanabcovid19) and its public Instagram @KanabCovid19 publish daily case numbers and charts.
