SALT LAKE CITY – Gov. Spencer Cox was optimistic and enthusiastic about Utah’s prospects for ending the pandemic at the weekly COVID-19 news conference. But the new state leader said that although the future is bright, things could have gone better if the state had implemented a masked mandate earlier.
“Sometimes I got it right and sometimes I got it wrong,” he said. “I made other mistakes earlier, not making masks, not giving them to the older ones, which could have helped and can save some lives.”
Former Gary Herbert resisted the implementation of a statewide mask order for months in a pandemic and gave in only after a huge increase in cases before Thanksgiving in November. At the time, Cox had just won the government election and was still in his role as lieutenant governor as well as head of the state coronavirus task force.
“In retrospect, we should have and probably could have imposed this,” Cox said Thursday.
While the state did not have an official mask mandate until the end of the fall, Herbert, Cox and other officials recommended the use of a face and produced 2 million masks to distribute to those who needed one.
“Many of us were right about the problems of this pandemic, and many of us were wrong at different times,” Cox said Thursday, stressing the balancing act facing officials as new information emerges.
In March 2020, face covering was not yet a political issue, and health officials and agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, urged residents not to wear them.
CDC guidelines at the time recommended that no clothing be worn on the face, saying that medical supplies should be kept for hospital staff on the front lines, and the coating would do little to prevent spread. But by April 2020, once the asymptomatic spread was better understood, the CDC updated its guidelines to advise every US resident to wear a face.
“I learned a lot about masks,” Cox said. “I learned more about how effective masks were.”
Since the early pandemic response, several studies have shown that wearing masks is an effective way to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, which spreads through respiratory droplets.
Similarly, several models developed by experts and scientists have predicted that COVID-19 cases in the country will reach a significant level in March before a decrease in cases is observed. In Utah, the number of cases and the positivity rate have begun to decline in recent weeks as the number of vaccines continues to rise.
“It doesn’t mean they’re bad people, it doesn’t mean they’re bad scientists, it doesn’t mean they don’t know what they’re doing; it just means things have changed,” Cox said.
To date, a total of 660,444 doses of vaccine have been administered in Utahns, almost doubling the total number of COVID-19 cases observed since the beginning of the pandemic to 369,433. A total of 1,890 Utahs died from COVID-19 and 14,597 were hospitalized, according to the Utah Department of Health.
Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 two-dose vaccines are currently available for eligible Utahns in the state, with the Johnson and Johnson single-dose vaccine expected in the coming days.
Overall, Cox was extremely optimistic about the state’s future with the pandemic, saying that during the summer, he hopes to be without a mask at a July 4th parade. He predicted that by the end of April or early May, there will be enough doses of vaccine available for every Utah adult who wants to get one.
As long as there is a low transmission after the majority vaccination, Cox believes that the masks will not be needed sooner than expected. That prediction could change, and if it does, the governor said the state will adjust its response.
Despite past mistakes by leaders, Cox stressed the importance of showing the light at the end of the tunnel. Officials do not always have the perfect answer and the retrospective is 2020, he added.
“Sometimes we don’t understand it exactly and (the masks) was probably one we could have done a little earlier,” Cox said.