Carbon County cases recovered

Editor’s Note: Just before going to press, Wyoming added four confirmed deaths to the state’s official count. Please visit http://www.saratogasun.com for more information.

Just two days after Wyoming confirmed it’s first death related to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the state confirmed its second death. On Monday, April 13, the Wyoming Department of Health had announced that an older Johnson County man who had serious health conditions had died. On Wednesday, April 15, the Wyoming Department of Health announced that the second death was an older Laramie County man who had previously been hospitalized due to COVID-19.

“Unfortunately, we have seen this disease touch another Wyoming family in the worst way,” said State Health Officer Alexia Harrist. “While anyone can get sick and has a chance of a serious illness with COVID-19, we do know those who are aged 65 and older and people who have certain medical conditions are more likely to experience complications and become severely ill.”

Since last week, there have been no additional deaths related to COVID-19 confirmed for the state. The number of confirmed and probable cases, however, continues to climb. As of Tuesday morning, there were 317 confirmed cases in Wyoming and 111 probable cases. Of the confirmed cases, 237 cases, or 74 percent, had recovered. Platte and Weston counties are still the only two counties in the state that have not recorded a confirmed case of COVID-19.

In Carbon County, all four confirmed cases assigned to the county have recovered according to a situational debrief from Jacquelin Wells, public information officer for the Carbon County COVID-19 Incident Management Team. Carbon County Public Health is currently investigating 37 cases with symptoms similar to COVID-19 and, of those, 16 have fully recovered. While there had been two hospitalizations last week, there were no hospitalized cases as of press time.

As of Tuesday morning, Laramie County had the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at 73 with 29 probable cases. Teton County had 62 confirmed cases and 27 probable cases, Fremont County had 51 confirmed cases and 7 probable cases and Natrona County had 38 confirmed cases and 10 probable cases.

According to data made available from the Wyoming Department of Health, 3,624 tests have been performed by the Wyoming Public Health Lab and 3,993 have been performed by commercial labs.

With the number of confirmed cases slowing compared to weeks prior, Governor Mark Gordon confirmed in a press release that his public health orders will remain in effect until April 30. Gordon added that the current health orders are in line with President Donald Trump’s first phase of “Guidelines for Opening Up America Again.”

“What we do in the coming weeks will determine the way we can ease these orders and rekindle our economy. I recognize the tremendous sacrifice we all have had to make, but it has been worth it. We have saved lives,” said Gordon. “Our transition into a new phase must be health data-driven, not date driven. If the people of Wyoming continue to do the right thing and we see the improvements we need to see, we will continue our transition to a stabilized economy. We need our economy back, but we must avoid a resurgence of this virus.”

According to Gordon, he would collaborate with neighboring states as Wyoming began to ease current restrictions, but cautioned that social distancing guidelines would remain in place and there would be new guidelines for businesses.

“We have got to get this right,” Gordon said. “We are living in a time where the new reality is that COVID-19 will be with us for the foreseeable future. Until we have a vaccine or a treatment, things are going to be different.”