The number of positive COVID-19 infections continues to concern healthcare workers, through there is some good news as infection rates are starting to trend downward slightly.
According to Dr. Jean Stachon, the county’s health officer, Sweetwater County had 615 new cases of COVID-19 infection in the last two weeks. She also said the county has had 16 deaths associated with the disease and has had 2,460 cases recorded in total since the novel coronavirus appeared in the state. Stachon said the positivity rate has declined slightly, but it still remains above 20%.
One of the areas the county’s health department still struggle with is contacting people who test positive with COVID-19 to give them information related to how they should isolate themselves from other people, as well as quarantine information to those who have been exposed to the coronavirus. According to Trista Cross with Sweetwater County Public Health, they’re dealing with more than 60 cases a day to contact. She said the organization has recently hired two Spanish-speaking contact tracers to help serve the Latinx population in Sweetwater County -- something Cross admits they haven’t done a good job doing previously. in total, the department employes 28 contact tracers, one of which is working full time.
Despite those numbers, she said the department is working on a 72-hour delay, notifying people who have tested positive three days previously with the information they need for isolation. Dr. Stachon said county health is encouraging people who do test positive to research the information on their own using the Wyoming Department of Health’s website.
If you’re infected with COVID-19
According to the department of health, those who do test positive should isolate at home unless they need to seek medical attention.
“Do not go to work. Do not go to school. Do not attend social gatherings or groups,” an information page on the department of health’s website reads.
Those in isolation need to separate themselves from other people and animals in the household, staying in a specific room and using a different bathroom than others if possible. They should also avoid sharing household items, like food, dishes, towels and bedding. Those infected with COVID-19 should also not care for animals in the household and if that’s not possible, was their hands before and after contact with the animals or feeding them.
Other steps those infected should take include washing their hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, clean commonly touched surfaces with a household cleaner and wear a facial covering in they need to be around people, including those in the same household.
The department of health also recommends people contact others they had close contact with while they were contagious. The department considers people contagious two days prior to when symptoms first started and up to 10 days after the symptoms started. Because COVID-19 can be transmitted by people infected who otherwise don’t show symptoms, asymptomatic people with COVID-19 are considered contagious two days before their sample was collected and tested, ending 10 days after the sample was collected.
People who should be contacted and informed include people who were within 6 feet of the infected person for a total of 15 minutes or more, which includes people at work, school or other social gatherings. The department also recommends informing people who are cared for at home by the infected person, anyone they had direct physical contact with, people they shared eating and drinking utenzils with and people the infected person cough, sneezed or may have otherwise gotten respiratory droplets on.
Those in isolation are urged to remain in isolation until they no longer have a fever without taking fever reducing medications, if their other symptoms have improved since they first started and if at least 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared. For asymptomatic people, they should remain in isolation for 10 days starting from the date they took their positive test.
If you’ve been exposed to COVID-19
The Wyoming Department of Health recommends a person who was in close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19 to quarantine for 14 days starting from the date of their most recent exposure. Much of the same advice for those in isolation with COVID-19 applies to someone in quarantine, including separating themselves from other family members in a home by sleeping in a different bedroom and maintaining at least a 6-foot distance from others. People can spend time outdoors and exercising outdoors so long as they distance themselves from others and avoid using public water fountains and restrooms.
While in quarantine, the person should monitor for symptoms of COVID-19, which include fever, chills, shortness of breath and difficulty breathing, fatigue, body aches, loss of taste or smell, among others. They should also call their healthcare provider and inform them they had been exposed to get a test scheduled. According to information from the department of health, the ideal testing time is five days after the initial exposure, followed by a second test on day 11 or 12 of the 14-day period.
There are two options for reducing quarantine periods as well. Quarantine can end after 10 days if the person had monitored themselves daily and not have any symptoms, which would allow a person to resume normal activities on day 11. Quarantine can end after seven days if the person has monitored themselves daily and not had any symptoms and had a negative PCR test collected on day five or later.
“Under no circumstances can quarantine be discontinued before (seven) full days of quarantine have passed since exposure,” information on the department of health’s website reads.
Even if the someone choses to end quarantine through those two options, the WDH suggests a person to continue monitoring for symptoms for the full 14 days and continue to follow other health recommendations like avoiding social gatherings, usage of facial coverings, frequent hand washing and social distancing.
Vaccine delivered to Wyoming
Shipments of the COVID-19 vaccine created by Pfizer started to arrive in Wyoming this week, through Sweetwater County wasn’t included on the list of recipients. Five shipments were confirmed, with each shipment consisting of 975 doses. According to Dr. Cielette Karn of Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County, the vaccines were distributed to locations that have confirmed capability for cold storage. The Pfizer vaccine requires a storage environment of -70 Celsius.
Once thawed, there is a strict time window to use the vaccine before it deteriorates. While MHSC has a cold-storage freezer it uses for tissues stored for surgery, Dr. Karn said there was some initial confusion as to if the hospital could store the vaccine with those tissues, which caused it to initially report it didn’t have the freezer space available. The hospital has ordered a cold-storage freezer, but has also learned it can use its existing freezer for vaccine storage.
Kim Lionberger, director of Sweetwater County Public Health, said her office has received multiple calls about when the vaccine will be available for public use.
She said the doses shipped to Wyoming are intended for people in what is called Phase 1, Group A.
The group includes healthcare workers, people who conduct coronavirus testing and law enforcement. B and C tiers exist within the Phase 1 group, but Lionberger said the WDE hasn’t elaborated on which people are in those tiers.
Dr. Stachon said she expects a vaccine to be sent to Sweetwater County next week, but isn’t sure if it will be the Pfizer vaccine or the new Moderna vaccine, which is going through final approval for emergency use this week. Dr. Stachon said the Moderna vaccine, if approved, will not have the cold storage requirement the Pfizer vaccine has. The shipment is also expected to be slightly larger as well, with an anticipated 1,100 doses of the Moderna vaccine available to the county next week if it’s approved, with the county possibly receiving up to 1,600 doses by the end of the year. According to Lionberger, while the initial shipment numbers look promising, she also urged caution that they are not guaranteed and the county could end up receiving a different amount.
According to Karn, the vaccine is a major piece to achieving herd immunity for COVID-19, which is reached when 75-80% of a population have had the disease either naturally or been exposed through a vaccine.
“It would be very difficult to do without a vaccine,” she said.
However, Dr. Karn said one of the things that isn’t clear is if someone who has been vaccinated is contagious if they contract the virus after the vaccination.
“We’re in uncharted territory and waters,” Dr. Stachon said.
Dr. Stachon said people may expect to see things start going back to normal this summer, but isn’t sure when the pandemic will be truly over. She also believes the pandemic may result in a change in how people act when they get sick, believing people may opt to wear facial coverings when they get sick and become less willing to go to work or school while they’re ill.
Both she and Dr. Brianne Crofts, a surgeon at MHSC, urge residents to continue wearing masks while in public places to help curb COVID-19 spread, but recognizes some people refuse to follow that recommendation.
“Our hopes are the majority of people are considerate of other people,” Dr. Stachon said. “(Wearing a mask) is the police, caring thing to do.”
Speaking about a recent claim that frequent mask wearing can result in pulmonary fibrosis, Dr. Stachon said she would have to see the data suggesting that. She said there has been a long tradition in the healthcare fields of wearing masks to prevent the spread of infection and disease, finding that claim “very hard to believe.”
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