COVID positives go up in the county

But so do the number of people vaccinated

[ by Mark Reaman ]

More people are testing positive for the coronavirus in Gunnison County, but part of the reason is because the amount of testing has been increased. Between August 22-28, Gunnison County had 50 positive results across all testing resources. This is roughly equivalent with the results from the previous week. According to Gunnison County public information officer Loren Ahonen, the increase coincides with expanded testing capacity at Gunnison Valley Health.

“Over the past two weeks, GVH has been able to quadruple daily testing capacity which helps ensure positive cases are identified appropriately and efficient contact tracing is completed,” he explained.

As of August 30, Ahonen said that the Gunnison Valley Hospital was reporting four current COVID admissions in its daily count. He said they continue to transfer patients who need a higher-level of care.

But as the number of positive case results has gone up, so has the number of people receiving the vaccine in the county. “In general, data for the last few weeks continues to show a positive trend in the rate of vaccination,” Ahonen said. “The state’s mobile unit began reporting increased first dose delivery in the last week of July. We are still awaiting numbers from last week’s stops by the CDPHE (Colorado Department of Health and Environment) mobile unit. Additionally, the county’s Health and Human Services department has been running weekly vaccination clinics which provide routine vaccination services (childhood vaccines, etc.) and this has grown to include scheduled COVID-19 vaccinations. Both last week and this week the available COVID-19 vaccine slots have been filled.”

As of this week, 77 percent of the eligible population in the county has received at least one dose of the vaccine. Additionally, more than 11,000 people are now fully vaccinated.

Positive cases are widely distributed geographically and demographically, according to Ahonen. The cases in this community are inclusive of year-round residents, visitors and part-time residents. The COVID-19 Delta variant is spreading in Gunnison County, the Western Slope, across Colorado and nationally. He said the exposure risks for the recent local cases are varied and include unvaccinated individuals, those who recently traveled, recent attendance at a large gathering, or close contact and other risk factors.
“We are not seeing specific pockets of the population driving transmission in the community,” he said. “The greatest risk continues be a lack of vaccination.”

As for possible booster shots, Ahonen noted that Gunnison County has increased its vaccination operations planning to be responsive to the expected need of delivering booster doses in the community in the coming months. While planning and organizing are underway, there are important details to be considered that will only become available with the final recommendation of the CDC and FDA. He said it is important to note that as of this writing the only individuals eligible for an additional/booster dose are those who are moderately to severely immunocompromised.

Please visit: https://covid19.gunnisoncounty.org for information on where to obtain a COVID-19 vaccination or testing.