Folks in our area may have noticed the COVID numbers increasing lately so Castle Country Radio thought it was important to sit down with Southeastern Utah Health Department’s Director Brady Bradford to share a COVID update with listeners.

“The number of positive cases have really skyrocketed in the last two weeks. Relative to the state, we historically trail behind the state by one to two weeks and we seem to be doing that this time around. The Wasatch front saw an explosion, they might be plateauing at this time. We’re just a little bit behind them, we’ve in the last two days I think I’ve seen about 300 positives come in,” said Bradford. Had the health department seen the current increase back with the Delta Variant it would have put a strain on our local health care providers. Officials hope to see a decrease in COVID numbers in the coming weeks.

There have been concerns regarding the shortage of COVID tests, luckily that isn’t the case for our area right now. “Tuesday of this week we had a critical shortage. We’re very grateful to Carbon and Emery School Districts who had some tests remaining from the test they were conducting from the previous school year. Partnering with them we’ve been able to shore up our supply and help to supply some of our partners that are testing as well,” state Bradford. The supply should last for the next couple of weeks while the health department waits for the state to replenish its supply.

Vaccines are still available at the health department if residents wish to get the vaccination. “I think there still individuals out there that are waiting to see, wanting to see six months data or a year of data and we’re at that point now. We know for sure that it’s a safe vaccine and it is effective. Now I’m saying effective and you say we have this huge surge of disease but one of the reasons that they’re not ending up in the hospital at the same rate as they use to be because the vaccine is protecting them from severe disease,” said Bradford. To see a schedule of walk-in clinic dates and times please visit the Southeastern Utah Health Department website at https://www.seuhealth.com/ or call them at (435) 637-3671.