More COVID-19 deaths reported

Health officials again ask for public’s help

Posted 11/17/20

A fourth Park County resident has died in connection with COVID-19 — and the county’s health officer says two additional deaths have occurred here.

The older man died at a Billings …

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More COVID-19 deaths reported

Health officials again ask for public’s help

Posted

A fourth Park County resident has died in connection with COVID-19 — and the county’s health officer says two additional deaths have occurred at the Powell hospital.

The older man died at a Billings hospital last week, being among 17 additional deaths related to COVID-19 that were confirmed by the Wyoming Department of Health on Saturday.

Park County Health Officer Dr. Aaron Billin said the man “had chronic medical conditions putting him at higher risk of a bad outcome from COVID-19.” He was initially treated at a local hospital, Billin said, and then transferred to a facility in Billings.

With the deaths announced on Saturday, there have now been 144 Wyomingites whose deaths were either caused or contributed to by the novel coronavirus. That’s among nearly 23,200 confirmed and probable cases that have been reported among Wyoming residents since March.

Billin indicated that the official death toll will soon rise again: Two other patients who were hospitalized in Park County have also died, he said, but they “have not been reported by the [Wyoming Department of Health] because the death certificates have not been finalized yet.” He said Tuesday that the deaths occured at Powell Valley Healthcare.

As of Monday, there were 352 active cases in Park County, both confirmed and probable, according to the Wyoming Department of Health. There were eight people hospitalized with COVID-19 — five at Cody Regional Health and three at Powell Valley Healthcare. They were among 191 patients being cared for in facilities around Wyoming, according to state data.

Billin, who has more up-to-date data on recoveries, has been reporting much lower numbers of active cases in the county. He listed 142 on Saturday — including 80 infected people in Cody and 45 in Powell.

Most people infected with COVID-19 suffer mild or moderate illness and recover on their own, but the disease can, in rare cases, be life-threatening.

With Wyoming still “on the upside of the curve,” Billin said that “most models predict significant increases in transmission and death over the next month.”

One model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington is currently predicting 399 deaths in Wyoming by March 1, 2021. However, its projections have swung up and down as time has passed and Billin said that “there are no experts” when it comes to the new virus. The institute’s model suggests that easing restrictions could lead to more deaths and universal mask-wearing could result in fewer deaths.

   

Providers ask for help

Powell Valley Healthcare Dr. Kelly Christensen had said in a spring video that local residents didn’t really need to worry about wearing masks because the novel coronavirus wasn’t circulating in the area. But Christensen recorded a video update for PVHC’s Facebook page last week.

Back in April, “I was a big opponent of wearing masks,” the doctor said, because the precautions being recommended in Wyoming were similar to those in place at the epicenter of the pandemic in New York.

“That was really pretty silly, because we didn’t have it here,” he said. “Well, now we do.”

Christensen urged people to wear masks to reduce the risk of transmitting COVID-19, to, most importantly, keep a distance from other people and to avoid gatherings, calling them a “bad idea.”

“This disease is going to get worse,” he said. “We’ve had patients die at our hospital from this disease. It’s not a joke. It’s not political. It is a real disease. It’s a real thing and now is the time … to please do the things that you’ve been told to do that you know that you probably should do, but it doesn’t seem like you want to do it.”

While masks “suck,” Christensen said personal protective equipment “is better than making people sick and making people die, which does happen.”

Cody Regional Health posted its own video message on Friday, calling on the community to help stop the spread of COVID-19.

“The effect that it’s having on our ability to care for all patients is really quite significant,” said Dr. Elise Lowe, a Cody Regional Health hospitalist.

“COVID-19 may have a very high survival rate,” Lowe said, “but it places a very high burden on our healthcare. When the hospitals are filled with patients with COVID-19, those beds are not available for certain other speciality services.”

Amid the upswing in cases in recent weeks and months, “the message isn’t that we should all be alarmed and terrified of this respiratory illness,” said Dr. John Murray, who works in Cody Regional Health’s Emergency Room, “but we need to take it very seriously.”

Billin shared data over the weekend indicating that Wyoming recently sunk to among the worst in the country in terms of new infections and deaths per capita, but he also shared information indicating that Wyoming’s rate of transmission (Rt) had improved. Billin noted that the effective reproduction number has gone up and down.

“This is because whenever things start to get better, the citizens of Wyoming let their guard down and transmission increases. Surprised, Wyoming gets better about wearing masks and social distancing and Rt decreases. This leads to a repeating cycle,” Billin said. “We need to learn from our mistakes and sustain the effort.”

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