EVANSTON — As is the case in virtually all areas of the United States, and much of the world, Uinta County’s COVID-19 case numbers have skyrocketed since the start of the new year. According to Wyoming Department of Health Regional Supervisor Kim Proffit, the county has seen well over 200 confirmed cases in the two weeks since Jan. 3. The Wyoming Department of Health online COVID dashboard lists 342 confirmed and probable cases in Uinta County in the past two weeks, with more than 200 active as of Friday, Jan. 14.

According to the WDH dashboard, recent case numbers in Uinta County are surpassing those from any other point thus far in the pandemic, with dozens of new cases being confirmed each day. The percentage of local tests returning as positive has hovered above 30% in recent days, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classifying anything above 10% as the high-risk red zone.

According to Proffit, the WDH has not yet confirmed from genetic sequencing whether any local cases are the extremely contagious Omicron variant that is spreading like wildfire; however, she said local officials have been told to assume the dramatic rise in new cases is likely due to Omicron, although it is also likely the Delta variant is still spreading as well. Proffit said approximately 30 of the confirmed cases in the county are in children, ranging in age from infants to teens.

Since its emergence a couple of months ago, Omicron has spread rapidly around the world. Uinta County Public Health Officer Dr. Mike Adams said the county, nation and world are seeing anywhere from 5-10 times the number of cases being reported just a couple of weeks ago, as Omicron is by far the most contagious variant that has emerged thus far — more than twice as contagious as Delta, which itself was more than twice as contagious as the initial version.

Adams said the Omicron variant does not appear to be as severe and deadly as the Delta variant responsible for the surge this past summer and fall, as hospitalizations and deaths have not skyrocketed proportionally to case numbers; however, hospitalizations have gone up nationally as well. In fact, simply because of the sheer numbers of people becoming infected with the very contagious variant, the New York Times COVID-19 database reported more than 140,000 Americans hospitalized with COVID as of Jan. 13, surpassing the previous high point during last winter’s case surge.

As Dr. Adams pointed out, some of these patients are hospitalized with COVID and not because of COVID, with some patients admitted for other reasons and being found to be infected on testing during admission. However, Adams emphasized this still presents a huge challenge for hospitals and staff because those patients need to be isolated from others and staff still need to follow infection control precautions with them, even if COVID itself was not the cause of their hospitalization. It is also impossible to know with certainty how many patients hospitalized with COVID are hospitalized because of COVID and how many have incidental infections, as that information is not regularly being self-reported by hospitals.

According to Proffit, Evanston Regional Hospital has seen an increase in both emergency room visits and hospitalizations because of COVID since the first of the year as case numbers increase. However, she said it was her understanding all COVID patients locally had been released last week.

The CDC has recently updated its isolation and quarantine procedures for those infected with or exposed to COVID to better reflect what science has shown related to contagious periods. Those who test positive for COVID-19 should isolate themselves for at least five days from the start of symptoms or from the date of the positive test if they are asymptomatic. If symptoms have improved and the individual has had no fever for at least 24 hours, the person can resume activity, but should wear a mask around others for another five days. If symptoms have not improved, the person should continue to isolate until such improvement occurs.

For those who are exposed, if they are fully vaccinated (meaning at least two doses and a booster if eligible) there is no need to quarantine but individuals should wear a mask around others for 10 days and get tested and isolate if symptoms develop. For those who are not fully vaccinated, they should quarantine for five days and then wear a mask around others for another five days. If symptoms begin, the unvaccinated should isolate themselves and seek testing.

Drive-thru testing is still available at ERH and, starting Wednesday, Jan. 19, free at-home tests will be available to all Americans through COVIDTests.gov. Although some individuals reached out to the Herald reporting receiving bills of several hundred dollars after being tested at ERH, CEO Cheri Willard said drive-thru tests should still be for COVID-19 only and those tests should still be fully covered by insurance for insured individuals. For those without insurance, the federal government pays for COVID testing.

However, if an individual seeks treatment in the ER, a physician may order other tests in addition to a COVID-19 screening and fees for those tests may be passed on to patients. Anyone who receives a statement or bill regarding testing fees who obtained a COVID test through the drive-thru testing program is urged to call the ERH billing department, where staff can help patients work with insurance companies to ensure they themselves are not receiving bills.

Vaccinations are available for everyone age 5 and older, and boosters are recommended for everyone five months after their second shot if they received Pfizer or Moderna and two months if they received the single Johnson & Johnson shot.

Adams also shared his expertise on vaccination and its benefits, despite documented breakthrough infections that are occurring in vaccinated individuals. Adams said that, even with breakthrough infections occurring, the risk of dying from COVID-19 is approximately 16 times higher for unvaccinated individuals and the risk of hospitalization is approximately six times higher for unvaccinated individuals. Those risks are backed up by WDH data, which shows approximately 12,000 confirmed cases in vaccinated individuals since vaccines became available in early 2021, compared to approximately 58,600 cases in unvaccinated individuals — nearly five times the number of cases in the vaccinated.

Similarly, WDH data shows 286 COVID hospitalizations for vaccinated individuals and 1,569 hospitalizations for the unvaccinated — approximately six times greater.

While some may point to the number of breakthrough infections and even hospitalizations as evidence the vaccines are not working, Adams explained this is based on a misunderstanding of how vaccines work. “A vaccine does not sterilize (kill) an organism,” said Adams. “Its activity is to boost immune response. No vaccine is 100% effective, just as no individual immune response is perfect. The efficacy of a particular vaccine varies according to the strength of the recipient’s immune response as well as the vaccine itself.”

In other words, vaccines don’t necessarily prevent a person from getting any illness. They prepare a person’s body to fight it off. For very effective vaccines, then, people’s immune systems are able to fight the pathogen off before symptoms of infection develop; as it is often these symptoms — such as coughing and sneezing — that spread the illness, the pathogen isn’t able to spread effectively.

Adams shared information on vaccines with very high efficacy, such as the smallpox and polio vaccines. The smallpox vaccine was so effective it resulted in the elimination of the disease and the polio vaccine is also highly effective and has resulted in near eradication of polio. Similarly, the measles vaccine is extremely effective.

Others, however, vary. For example, the influenza vaccine efficacy varies from 25-80% efficacy each year. “There is variability in the efficacy of the three COVID vaccines and the efficacy naturally declines with time,” said Adams. “That is why the boosters are now recommended. Data on initial efficacy varies from 60-85%, but it also depends on factors such as which variant is involved, age of the individual, and other underlying risk factors, such as race, diabetes, obesity, immunocompromising conditions, hypertension, coronary artery disease, arrhythmias, heart failure, chronic kidney disease, chronic pulmonary disease, chronic liver disease, cerebrovascular disease, chronic neurologic disease and other factors which affect susceptibility and disease severity.”

Adams continued, “It appears that COVID vaccines are better at preventing death and severe disease than they are at preventing infection. Overall, however, the risks from getting the disease far outweigh the risks from getting the shots. Although many have had a sore arm and flu-like symptoms for several days, I will take that any day in order to get whatever protection I can get from COVID with its short and long-term complication risks.”

Additionally, some may point to the VAERS data (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) as evidence the vaccines are dangerous. The raw VAERS data do, in fact, appear to show thousands of deaths from the COVID-19 vaccine. However, those appearances can be deceiving. As listed on the website, anyone — not just healthcare professionals — can report any suspected adverse effects on the website. A disclaimer on the site reads, in part: “Vaccine providers are encouraged to report any clinically significant health problem following vaccination to VAERS, whether or not they believe the vaccine was the cause. Reports may include incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental and unverified information. The number of reports alone cannot be interpreted or used to reach conclusions about the existence, severity, frequency, or rates of problems associated with vaccines.”

In fact, when visiting the VAERS site and looking at the raw data, there are supposed deaths from the COVID-19 vaccine reported in 1921, 1956, 1960, 1967, 2001, 2012, and other years, for example — all well before the COVID-19 vaccine, and COVID-19 itself, even existed. There are also thousands of deaths annually reported to VAERS for common childhood and other vaccines, including those for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis; hepatitis B; influenza; pneumonia; measles, mumps and rubella and more. As noted in the disclaimer — which anyone accessing data on the site is required to acknowledge reading — the raw numbers on VAERS have not been verified and do not mean that any vaccine is responsible for any death or other event reported by anyone accessing the site. Instead, reports would need to be verified by healthcare experts looking for trends to indicate a problem.

While there are widely reported side effects associated with the COVID-19 vaccines, including the flu-like symptoms mentioned by Adams, they are still proven to be safe and effective, according to Adams, Proffit and the CDC. Billions of doses have been administered in the U.S. and around the world, including hundreds of thousands in Wyoming and more than 500 million in the United States. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 4 billion people globally have been fully vaccinated. As Proffit has stated on multiple occasions, with that many people being vaccinated, any severe side effects or patterns of deaths would have been noticed.

In Uinta County, approximately 43% of the entire population is vaccinated.

“Vaccines, although not perfect, remain the best tool we have to fight this pandemic,” said Adams, “although other tools, such as masking, distancing and hygiene also help. Many consider vaccination to be an answer to our prayers for relief and I strongly encourage all who can to get the shots.”

The WDH reported 1,588 COVID-19 deaths in Wyoming since the beginning of the pandemic, as of Jan. 14, including 34 in Uinta County. There have been more than 850,000 COVID-19 deaths due to COVID-19 in the U.S. and more than 5.5 million globally, according to the WHO.