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In early 2021, Routt County reached its highest positivity rate except for the first days of the pandemic when tests were slim, when about 8.9% of tests came back positive on the 24th. January.
Seven months later, the local positivity rate rose again, reaching 8.7% on Saturday, the last day for which data is available.
“It’s not 2019,” said Routt County Public Health Director Roberta Smith. “I think people have let their guard down. They think we are back to normal, and we are not.
Virtually all cases of COVID-19 in Colorado are now the most severe delta variant, according to state-level sequencing, with the vast majority of infections occurring in unvaccinated people. The variant makes people sicker than with other versions of the virus, and it affects a wider variety of people.
“We are seeing patients who are very sick and demographically different from the ones we were in the last peak,” said Dr Richard Zane, director of innovation and chief of emergency services for UCHealth. “We’re seeing people without comorbidities – it’s a much more contagious 1,000-fold variant.”
Zane said it’s almost like two different illnesses at this point. Among those vaccinated, symptoms are mild or nonexistent, while those who are not vaccinated are often among the sickest patients they have ever seen, Zane said.
There have been 66 new cases of COVID-19 locally over the past seven days, according to the Routt County Dashboard, and Smith said much of the transmission is due to people not taking not the precautions that have become staples throughout the pandemic.
“When we’ve seen outbreaks here locally in our community, it’s because people went to work sick and infected others,” Smith said. “It is unacceptable that we still have this going on.”
Smith said parents need to watch for this when they send their children back to school to help prevent cases there as well.
While children usually don’t get as sick, Zane said cases in young people have the ability to easily spread the virus. If the first iteration of COVID-19 was a kid’s glue stick, the delta variant is the equivalent of Gorilla glue, Zane said.
“(The children) get sick; they are admitted to the hospital, ”Zane said. “Not in high numbers, not in higher proportionality than in the last wave, but the infectious factor in children with the delta variant is really something.”
Health officials continue to point to vaccines as the solution, a message that could be helped by the Food and Drug Administration’s full approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, months after it was approved for use emergency. Zane said the information federal officials were waiting for was how long the vaccine should provide protection. Zane said it appears to be between six and 10 months before a recall is recommended.
Zane said he believes the news will have two effects. First, it may inspire some lukewarm people about the vaccine to roll up their sleeves. But the biggest impact this could have for Zane comes in the form of employer vaccination mandates.
“I don’t think people will have to be vaccinated. They’re going to have to choose between being employed and getting vaccinated, ”Zane said. “It is truly a societal obligation and an act of patriotism to get vaccinated. … If you choose not to get the vaccine, you are making a selfish decision that history will look down upon. “
Vaccines are widely available in Routt County from most health care providers and pharmacies. The state immunization bus will also make several local stops during the schools open houses in Steamboat Springs this week and next.
Jesse Herrgott, public health nurse educator for Routt County, said the county’s strategy for getting people vaccinated doesn’t change much now that Pfizer is approved, but he hopes it will convince some of the reluctant to get vaccinated.
Testing availability has also increased in the county, with the Routt County Public Health Department starting to re-do its own tests twice a week. Other local test sites are also seeing increased traffic.
“People talk a lot about individual choice, but the reason you get the vaccine isn’t because of yourself. It’s also because of the other people around you, ”Zane said. “Not getting vaccinated is an unpatriotic act. “
To reach Dylan Anderson, call 970-871-4247 or email [email protected].
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