April 9, 2020 |
Governor Mark Gordon continues to resist a shelter in place order, but Wyoming residents should be prepared to live with the existing social distancing restrictions until at least mid-May, and perhaps longer.
During a news conference Wednesday, both the governor and the state public health director dodged putting a date on when orders restricting public life in Wyoming might be lifted.
The governor said new modeling indicates that the peak number of COVID-19 cases in Wyoming had been pushed back from earlier projections of late April or early May.
When asked by Bigfoot 99 if coronavirus cases would peak in mid-May, Dr. Alexia Harrist said she could not offer a firm time frame.
Governor Gordon described the data being used to create models for the course of the spread in Wyoming as “noisy.” The projections change from day to day, he said. So making predictions about when caseloads would peak or public health orders be lifted is riddled with uncertainty.
Much of the modeling for the outbreak focuses on medical resources needed to handle patients, including the number of hospital beds, ICU beds and ventilators.
At the national level the demand for medical resources to treat COVID-19 patients is projected to peak next week, then taper off until June 1. This is according to healthdata.org, which is operated by The Institute for Metrics and Evaluation. Wyoming is working with the IHME, the governor said.
According to national data from IHME, virus-related deaths are expected to reach zero on June 14th. The model is based on the assumption of full social distancing through the end of May.
Governor Gordon has said the spread of the novel coronavirus is running several weeks behind the rest of the country. Dr. Harrist said Wyoming modeling also looks at medical resources, but still avoided saying when demand for hospital beds might decline.
Just as the nation has notable hot-spots of COVID-19 concentrations, so does Wyoming.
Over half of the confirmed cases have been reported in 14 counties. When Bigfoot 99 asked if public health orders could be eased in places with fewer cases, the state health officer responded this way:
Meanwhile, the Wyoming Department of Health reports 33 hospitalizations since the first appearance of the virus in Wyoming last month. The governor said that beds are not as big a concern as the people running them. Relief may be on the way for frontline medical workers.
The state public health officer did make a new recommendation for state residents yesterday.
Neither Dr. Harrist, the governor nor any other state official present at yesterday’s news conference was wearing a face mask. The governor did demonstrate that he had one in his jacket pocket. It was unclear whether the recommendation will be elevated to a requirement at some point.
