Almost exactly two years after the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, many places, including Wyoming, are seeing COVID case numbers decrease and transitioning out of precautions and procedures put in place at the beginning of the pandemic. The latest development for Wyoming is the end of the state’s COVID-19 Public Health Emergency declaration, which will officially end March 14.
“As we see our case numbers and hospitalizations receding, it is time to begin the shift to a new phase,” Governor Mark Gordon said in a press release. “This virus will be with us for the foreseeable future and we should manage it appropriately. That means being personally responsible for one’s own health and respectful of your family and neighbors. Use the tools we now have available and stay home when you’re sick.”
Sweetwater County, like much of the state, has seen a decrease in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations over the past month.
“It definitely seems like it’s getting better,” Kim White, the director of emergency services at Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County, said.
These days the hospital only has one or two people coming into the emergency room with COVID-19 systems each day, and some days no one comes, according to White. Less patients are having to be set up on oxygen than in the past as well, she added.
Positivity rates, which measure the amount of people testing positive for COVID-19 against the total number of people being tested, have also decreased. At one point Sweetwater County had a 48% positivity rate, White said, but it later dropped to 10%. The state’s positivity rate went from 20% down to 4%.
The number of people admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 has also decreased significantly in the past month, particularly compared to numbers in the fall and in January.
White explained the hospital saw an increase in admitted patients for COVID-19 last fall, with 80 patients in August and September and around 60 in October alone. According to information from the Wyoming Department of Health, last fall’s peak of hospitalizations in Wyoming occurred Oct. 21, when 249 patients across the state were hospitalized with COVID-19.
Numbers at Sweetwater Memorial dropped to a dozen or less admitted patients in November and December, then increased into the 30s in January when another surge of cases happened in the county and across the state. Things tapered off again with 18 patients admitted with COVID-related problems in February. As of March 9, only one patient was being treated for COVID-19 as an inpatient at the hospital.
White also noted over the past month the hospital has seen less fatal cases than there were in the fall, and during the surge at the beginning of the year patients typically had less severe symptoms than during past surges.
“It wasn’t as extreme as we had seen before,” White explained, referring to the surge of cases in January. “It seemed like it was just not as severe of an illness this time as it was last fall. So while it seemed more contagious and we had a lot more people that had it, the severity of the illness wasn’t as bad.”
While Sweetwater Memorial doesn’t have the ability to test for COVID-19 variants, many staff members at the hospital believed the variants were responsible for the severity of the cases they saw, from the Delta in the fall which was “the most horrific” according to White to Omicron in January, which would account for the less severe symptoms.
When it comes to the future and the concern of possible new variants, White pointed out Wyoming has some advantages. For one thing, new variants often hit other countries before reaching the United States, and once they do come to our country they typically start at the east coast before moving west, meaning Wyoming typically has more time to study and prepare for the variants before they come.
“And then, of course, we’re always working on making sure that we have the proper protective equipment to be able to keep our staff safe and to keep patients safe when they come in here,” White said.
The hospital’s work to have enough equipment and supplies is coming in handy now with the governor’s decision to lift the public health emergency declaration. The declaration primarily affected hospitals since it gave them access to more supplies, equipment and funding. White said Sweetwater Memorial has had enough resources and not needed more for a while now, so she hopes the lifting of the emergency declaration won’t affect them. She also noted the declaration could be put back in place in the future if things get worse again.
“I don’t know if it’ll ever completely go away,” White said of COVID-19. She believes we could continue to see case surges in the future, but is hopeful it will never be as bad as it was in the past.
Going forward into a future where COVID-19 remains a reality but less of an emergency, White encouraged everyone to take extra precautions if you’re sick and especially be careful around others with health conditions if you have symptoms of a respiratory illness.
“Be respectful of other peoples’ health,” White said.
She also said people should talk to their health care providers about vaccination, and specifically should consider getting a booster if they are immunocompromised or have other health conditions. Personally, White encourages people to get the vaccine because she has been dealing with difficult long-term effects from having COVID-19 and doesn’t want others to have to experience the same thing.
While the hospital hosted their last drive-thru vaccination clinic this week, the vaccine remains widely available throughout Sweetwater County. Sweetwater Memorial decided to end the drive-thru vaccinations because of a dwindling number of people coming to the clinics and the need for staff to be able to return to other duties. However, White is happy the hospital has been able to offer so many resources, like the vaccine clinics, throughout the pandemic.
“We’ve taken more steps than a lot of hospitals have,” White said. “And we’re very proud of the fact that we did do that and super excited to be able to serve our community.”
As the hospital continues to serve the community, White also reminds everyone that while many things are getting back to normal, healthcare systems will continue to be more impacted by COVID-19 than other entities. The hospital hopes to eventually be able to not require masks, but currently still requires masks in hospital facilities in accordance with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health care workers will also have to continue with the personal effects of the pandemic.
“While COVID is not so much affecting people outside of here because they’re getting back to life as normal, it still does affect health care,” White said. “It is hard to watch people go through this illness and watch some people succumb to it and some people do well. So be patient with healthcare people as we’re going to be a little slower to open up things because of the guidelines that we have to follow.”
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