SWEETWATER COUNTY — With the Delta Variant making its way across the country and Wyoming, local health officials are strongly encouraging residents to get vaccinated to slow down this new wave of the COVID-19 virus.
During a COVID-19 informational meeting today between local health officials, business leaders, elected officials and media representatives, officials are reporting hospitals across the nation and Wyoming are starting to see the results of the Delta Variant, which is a highly transmissible variant of the COVID-19 virus. Currently, Sweetwater County has a total of 36 Delta variant cases, which an increase of nine reported two weeks ago by the Wyoming Department of Health.
Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County (MHSC) Dr. Cielette Karn said the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) centers in Salt Lake City are no longer taking any more patients because they are maxed out. She said they are not just refusing COVID-19 patients that need help, but others as well.
Some of this is due to the pandemic, but it is also due to the national-wide nursing shortage.
“They are down 30 beds in the ICU due to lack of nurses,” Dr. Karn said about Salt Lake City
A lot of nurses are leaving the field due to burn out from the pandemic. Dr. Karn said she believes the nation will lose even more after this next wave of the pandemic is over.
“I would like to as a physician encourage everyone to get out there and get vaccinated and get your friends and family vaccinated,” Dr. Karn said. “That’s the thing we can do to help our community….”
“This is not a political decision. This is about public health,” Dr. Karn said.
Kim White, MHSC COVID-19 incident commander and emergency services director, said in the past four days the hospital has seen seven to eight COVID-19 patients visiting the emergency room each day. This has been the largest amount of people visiting the hospital for COVID-19 related issues since the beginning of the pandemic. Most of the COVID-19 patients being admitted now are in their thirties and they do not have previous health conditions.
White said most of the patients visiting the emergency room seem to think there is some “magic” medication or treatment they can receive and the COVID-19 symptoms go away. This is simply not true.
“There really is no instant cure for COVID,” White said. “We can treat the symptoms.”
Sweetwater County Public Health Director Kim Lionberger said the COVID-19 positive numbers in the state have doubled in a week. That is due to a combination of the highly transmissible Delta variant and the state’s low vaccination rate.
According to the latest information from the Wyoming Department of Health, 33.87 percent of Wyomingites have received the vaccine while in Sweetwater County 30.38 percent of residents have been vaccinated.
“It’s going to take a lot of people to get vaccinated to curb this,” Lionberger said about the projected wave.
MHSC will continue hosting driver-thru vaccination clinics on Wednesdays from 3-6 p.m. For more vaccination information, click here.
Mask Enforcement
With Governor Mark Gordon stating he will not be implementing a mask mandate in schools, some counties are already looking at how they can go about imposing their own, Sweetwater Public Health Officer Dr. Jean Stachon said.
Since the Legislature changed how mask mandates are implemented and enforced, local officials are left wondering who will enforce mask mandates if the community needs them. For example: in Sweetwater County, it would be the Sweetwater County Commission, the Sweetwater County Board of Health, or left up to both local school districts to impose mask mandates, Dr Stachon said.
Dr. Stachon said they are hoping to learn more about this process later on this week.
“I think the impression in our county is this has all gone away, but it has not,” Dr. Stachon said.
While it appears no one in the county is seeking mask mandates at this time, local officials will be closely watching what process is used for the other counties in Wyoming that are seeking them.
