SALT LAKE CITY – Utah’s mask mandate will largely expire on April 10 – but that doesn’t mean everyone should celebrate the day by throwing off their masks, a public health expert recommended.
The date of termination of the state mandate was determined by a bill that passed the state legislature last week. Lawmakers said the date was blessed by Governor Spencer Cox and the Utah Department of Health. The governor confirmed last week that he supports the term of office of the bill, although he has not yet officially signed it.
Some portions of a mandate could exist beyond April 10, such as masks in business or schools, but HB294 also set a deadline for all public health orders from July 1.
Even as April approaches, more health experts have urged individuals to be cautious in public settings. This includes Dr. Todd Vento, an infectious disease physician for Intermountain Healthcare. That’s why he advises Utahns to continue wearing masks on and after April 10, especially while in less ventilated indoor public spaces.
“Honestly, I would say that there is no difference between April 9 and April 10; it is a coincidence,” he said, before acknowledging provisions that extend parts of the term beyond April 10.
It is worth noting that there are provisions that would maintain certain requirements in force between April 10 and July 1. For example, face coverage may be required for events and locations with more than 50 people after April 10th. This includes business and schools.
State or local health orders could remain in effect until July 1 if the state’s 14-day case rate is over 191 per 100,000 people, if the state’s use of seven-day COVID-19 intensive care is over 15% or the state remains below 1.63 million prime doses of COVID-19 vaccine allocated.
“I would not look at April 10 as anything different from my own personal protection and the personal protection of others,” Vento added. “If I’m not in public, I should probably be careful if I go to a place that occupies 100% now and I don’t know about their ventilation system and people don’t wear masks, because we don’t have a large part of our population. have been vaccinated and are still at risk, even though we have fewer cases and fewer viruses than, say, Thanksgiving (and) after Christmas.
“The reality is that we still have the virus. We still have a continuous average of over seven days and we still have – depending on the statistics you use – 4% or 8% … testing for positivity,” he continued. “There were numbers we had when we were stuck, so I know we changed a lot. For example, I accepted a lot because people want to go back to work and want to be normal. The reality we have in front of us is the reality we need to approach, not the reality we want it to be. We need to work towards this reality, so I would encourage people to continue to use these precautions until (greater immunity of the herd is reached). “
The expiration date of the adjusted term came just weeks after the Utah Department of Health announced the criteria for ending the state’s mandate. State officials have said they will begin phasing out the mandate in low-transmission counties after the state received just over 1.63 million prime doses allocated. A primary dose is considered the first dose of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines or the Johnson & Johnson single dose vaccine.
State Department of Health officials said the primary dose target of 1.63 million represents about 70 percent of Utah’s adult population. Health experts say 70% to 90% of staff immunity should probably be reached to end the pandemic.
While the state plans to make the vaccine eligible for every adult in Utah on April 1, Cox staff estimated this week that Utah will have about 1.5 million vaccines allocated by April 10, which drops to only 70%.
Vento said there are still “a lot” of people who are reluctant to get the vaccine. These include cultural, religious, access or mistrust barriers. Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson last week announced the new “roadmap” for the Utah vaccine, which aims to close some of the gaps, especially in terms of access.
“We will not reach 90% of vaccinations. We still estimate 70% to 80% of the herd’s estimated immunity – most being vaccine-induced herd immunity, because we are not sure how long the natural immunity will last, “said Vento.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched new guidelines this week on when masks can come off. The guidelines state that people who are fully vaccinated – after receiving both photos of a two-shot vaccine or the Johnson & Johnson vaccine – may gather inside with other fully vaccinated people or may gather inside with unvaccinated people from another household without a mask if the person is not or does not live with someone at high risk of COVID-19.
The biggest concern, according to Vento, is that governments have and will continue to relax restrictions before establishing a better immunity for the herd. This not only poses the risk of a new spread, but also the risk that the SARS-CoV-2 virus will move beyond the strains that vaccine manufacturers have already become “really concerned about”.
“The more I broadcast, the more I reply,” he said. The more it moves, the better the chance for a mutation that would not be covered by the vaccine.
That’s why he, along with other public health experts in Utah and around the United States, urges people to get the vaccine as soon as it becomes available to them.
Why does Utah have fewer confirmed options?
Vento addressed all sorts of questions about the pandemic during the virtual question and answer session with members of the media on Friday, including on variants of coronavirus strains and how they could affect vaccination efforts.
This week, the state health department began reporting findings of three variants of the coronavirus that cause COVID-19. Data updated on Friday showed that 67 cases of the “United Kingdom” strain were found in Utah, without confirmed cases of “South Africa” or “Brazil” strains. He listed 33 variants from Great Britain on Thursday.
The South African strain, officially named B.1.351, is the variant that led Moderna to start a study of an updated vaccine to ensure that it protects people as effectively as the primary strain that appeared at the end of 2019.
So far, there is a lot of good data on our therapeutic use and vaccines that should be answered, but there are also some data that make us maintain this precaution, especially with that South African strain.
– Dr. Todd Vento, an infectious disease physician at Intermountain Healthcare
Vento said that one of the reasons the number of case variants in Utah is low is that the US has not tested variants as much as other counties around the world, especially compared to Europe. It is located at the top of a geographical division between the continents where the three largest variants have appeared.
Of course, there are other strains of coronavirus. Vento said Friday that there are known cases of what is known as the “California variant” in Utah and several other variants. These strains are not currently reported in the health department data and are not as well studied in terms of their impact on vaccination effectiveness.
He said he wanted to acknowledge the current facts about the variants in order to provide a full range of the COVID-19 situation and not to offer a perspective that is “dangerous and gloomy” or covered in sugar.
“(It’s) just reality. Mutated RNA viruses and many of these mutations do nothing. Some of these mutations actually improve the health of the virus and make it easier for the virus to jump into the community,” he said. “So far, there is a lot of good data about our therapeutic use and vaccines that there should be answers, but there are also some data that make us maintain this precaution, especially with that South African strain.”
COVID-19 beyond the pandemic
Vento also addressed the possible future after COVID-19 is no longer a pandemic and said the future could very well mean at least another “booster shot” vaccine.
Keep in mind that the manufacturers of drugs behind vaccines have not yet completed their studies on vaccines. They have about eight to 10 months of data from 100,000 people, which will help figure out exactly how long the vaccine provides protection against the coronavirus, Vento said Friday.
This means that it is not yet known if the vaccine is a one-time vaccine or will become an annual flu vaccine. There is also a theory that another dose could help against the new COVID-19 variants. While all of these are possibilities, there are still a lot of unknowns.
What Vento advised on Friday is that people could “rely” on the fact that the current vaccination effort will not be the end of COVID-19 vaccines.
“I would expect and I think people should expect that they will need some kind of additional vaccine at some point,” he said. Whether it’s every year, every two years – or if we get a big increase in a new type of variant, we may find that we need “Modern-type 2” as the next vaccine. These types of practices. ”