Southeast Utah Health Department (SEUHD) was very pleased with the way folks conducted themselves during the Thanksgiving holiday as COVID numbers reflected those actions. The Southeast Utah Health Department came into Castle Country Radio to talk about how to safe guard yourself and your family during the Christmas holiday.
“After talking to a lot of people, I understood that a lot of people choose to stay home and adjust their Thanksgiving. We think we have seen the benefits of that locally, and even statewide it didn’t quite surge the way we thought it might and I attribute that to adjusted actions, and continued implementation of social distancing and mask use,” said Health Director, Brady Bradford. The numbers have decreased and the hope is that the trend will continue as we move through the holidays.
If you are planning to fly for the Christmas holiday you are strongly encouraged to wear your masks and practice social distancing as much as you can. Washing your hands and using hand sanitizer is also strongly advised. “If we can keep these practices going through Christmas, keep these numbers trending downward that’s going to keep our hospitals safe. Unfortunately, we had several deaths and we saw that directly, really as a result of the numbers we saw through November. Now that that’s reduced, we hope that its not going to happen in our area over the next little while, but certainly there is still cause for us to be on our guard,” stated Bradford.
It’s been all over the news about the vaccine being distributed to hospitals workers and it should be made available in our area real soon. “Some of our providers, our hospital providers will get a vaccine for their employees. We will get some and be expected to work with other providers, health care providers throughout the area. Unfortunately, we don’t early on get a whole lot so it will take a few weeks to get through these first assigned priority groups,” said Bradford. Its anticipated that sometime during the month of March that the vaccine could be available to the public, this is just a guess but officials are hopeful for the timeline.
To keep posted on the latest COVID numbers and news visit the Southeast Utah Health Department website at https://www.seuhealth.com/