EVANSTON — Another Uinta County COVID-19 fatality was announced by the Wyoming Department of Health this week, which said an older Uinta County woman who was a resident at a long-term care facility died in April. The fatality brings the number of coronavirus-related deaths in the county to 13, according to the WDH website.

Although most would certainly like the COVID-19 pandemic to be over, Uinta County Public Health Nurse Manager Kim Proffit said local cases have been ticking back up in recent weeks and, in a particularly concerning development, hospitalizations have been going back up as well. Proffit said there was a period when there were no COVID patients hospitalized at Evanston Regional Hospital or elsewhere locally; however, as of Wednesday, May 5, there were three or four patients hospitalized.

A couple of weeks ago, there were fewer than 10 active cases in the county. Proffit said earlier this week that there were 25-26 active confirmed cases. The rate of positivity from testing has gone back up as well, and in a weekly update meeting on Monday, May 3, Rocky Mountain Care Director Nancy Bunot said the increasing positivity rate has necessitated a return to weekly surveillance testing for staff and residents at that facility.

However, Bunot noted that those who are fully vaccinated (meaning two weeks after receiving the second dose of either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines or the single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine) do not have to undergo surveillance testing and do not have to be tested unless there is an outbreak or that individual is symptomatic.

During that update, Proffit and Uinta County Public Health Officer Dr. Mike Adams stressed the importance of vaccinations for all those eligible, which currently includes everyone 18 and older for the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines and everyone 16 and older for the Pfizer vaccine. Proffit said Uinta County Public Health continues to conduct vaccination clinics and has two large clinics planned for this week and next to administer second doses. However, the number of people signing up for vaccines has significantly declined in recent weeks. According to the WDH website, about 23% of the population of Uinta County is fully vaccinated. Most health experts believe it will require between 70-80% to achieve herd immunity. About 32% of those 18 and over and just over 55% of those 65 and over in the county are fully vaccinated.

Perhaps because of the greater vaccination rate in the older, at-risk population, Proffit said many of the current active cases appear to be in the under 40 age group. She again reiterated the importance of abiding by the same COVID precautions that have been in place for months, particularly because there have been two documented cases of variants in the county. Variants occur when the virus mutates; sometimes those mutations make that version of the virus more dangerous. In the case of the variants identified in the county, they appear to make the virus more transmissible and more resistant to the drugs used by physicians to treat COVID-19 illness.

A development that may help increase the vaccination statistics is the availability of the Pfizer vaccine for those aged 16 and over. Proffit said public health vaccinated about two dozen teens in that age range on Friday, April 30, and will continue to have small clinics for that group on Friday afternoons. She said that first group of teens was excited to be vaccinated and that chatting with them gave staff a little boost.

“They wanted to be vaccinated and do their part in this,” she said. “None of them were dragged in here.”

Those interested in having their teens vaccinated can register online by filling out the form on uintacounty.com.

Additionally, it appears likely the FDA will issue emergency use authorization for the Pfizer vaccine in those aged 12-15 in the coming days and will perhaps issue full approval of the Pfizer vaccine for the 16 and older age group before the end of the month. Full approval means the vaccine has been rigorously tested and approved for use, similar to any other vaccine, drug or medicine. Currently, all three COVID-19 vaccines in use in the United States have emergency-use authorization only, due to the urgency of the pandemic. However, now that millions of people have received the vaccine, providing enormous amounts of data on efficacy and safety, the FDA is reportedly poised to issue general approval.

Proffit said the county has been using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine again after its use was temporarily halted by the CDC to study reports of serious blood clotting complications in six individuals after receiving that vaccine. After that brief pause, the CDC again recommended its use. Proffit said data show there is an 8-10 times greater risk of blood clotting complications from COVID-19 infection than there is from receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

“People are really tired of the precautions,” said Proffit, “but even though our numbers have gone down, there’s enough transmission happening that when you’re at a larger event there’s a good chance that someone there is infected. Indoor masking is still important and a good idea.”

“The way to get past all of this is to get vaccinated and get to that herd immunity,” she said.