Vaccine gets go ahead, active cases drop

The first doses of the Moderna vaccine were administered in the United States on Monday, another step towards the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. This second type of vaccine is scheduled for delivery in Crook County soon.

Moderna Inc announced on Friday that it had received authorization for emergency use of its vaccine. The company reports having tested the vaccine on 30,000 participants, 42% of whom were considered to be in medically high-risk groups; the primary efficacy analysis indicated it to be 94.1% effective.

Moderna expects to deliver 20 million doses of the vaccine by the end of December and to have up to 125 million doses available globally in the first quarter of 2021, with 85-100 million of those doses for the U.S.

Crook County is expecting to receive a small batch of vaccine doses imminently. The second to receive emergency use approval from the Food and Drug Authority (FDA), the Moderna vaccine was considered more suitable for this county because it does not need to be stored at ultra-low temperatures.

Vaccines in Wyoming

Wyoming has not yet reported the arrival of any Moderna vaccines, but the Pfizer version has been available to states since December 12. Wyoming has now received 4875 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and, as of Monday, a total of 1675 had been administered.

The state determined where to send those first doses by first identifying the hospitals and county health departments that had ultra-low temperature freezers with room for the vaccine. The Wyoming Department of Health (WDH) expects the Moderna vaccine to be shipped to the remaining counties this week.

“If the estimates and expectations about vaccine production and authorizations continue as planned, each Wyoming county should receive enough vaccines to cover most individuals in the Phase 1a priority group within a few weeks,” says the WDH vaccination distribution guide.

Phase 1a includes hospital staff, EMS personnel, healthcare providers in long-term care facilities and assisted living, public health nurses, those who conduct COVID-19 sample collection, law enforcement, licensed care staff who are regularly exposed, local health departments, home health providers, school nurses and pharmacy staff.

Subject to availability, Crook County is scheduled to receive 200 doses of the Moderna vaccine in December. However, the WDH notes that the amounts designated to each county are tentative at this time.

If you would like to be placed on the waiting list for a vaccine once doses become available for your priority group, contact Crook County Public Health.

Pandemic Spread

The Moderna vaccine news comes as Wyoming enters a period of reduced spread, but also as other nations report that a new strain of COVID-19 has been identified and is thought to be more infectious than previous mutations.

Believed to now be responsible for three quarters of the cases in London, England, the new strain is thought to have already spread from the UK to Denmark, Australia and possibly the Netherlands.

The new strain is reported to be more infectious and could be up to 70% more transmissible. However, it’s early days in the identification process and many questions about its nature have yet to be answered.

In Wyoming, the news has been mostly good for the last couple of weeks for more than just the upcoming presence of a vaccine. Hospitalizations have dropped, as have new daily infections, while the number of active cases within the state has plummeted.

After weeks of daily statistics that included new infections in the hundreds, Wyoming only saw a cumulative total of 1680 cases during the week spanning December 15 to 21.

Meanwhile, Wyoming reached an all-time high number of active cases at 11,861 around the beginning of December. On Monday, however, a number of days in which recoveries outpaced new infections meant there were only 1947 active cases in this state.

The number of people in Wyoming who were hospitalized with the virus also reached an all-time high of 247 on November 30. However, this figure began to drop soon afterwards and, by Sunday, was down to 162.

Hospitalizations in Crook County remain comparatively high, however, and have been at two or higher throughout the week. On December 17 and 18, the hospital in Sundance had four COVID-19 patients – the most that have been admitted at one time during the pandemic.

Over the last week, Crook County has recorded just 15 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the overall total through the pandemic to 347.

However, one area of the statistics that remains sobering is the number of deaths due to COVID-19. Over the last week, this has risen by 30 to an overall total of 351.

The first seven of these deaths were reported on December 15, while the remaining 23 were added to the statistics the next day. Of those who died, 12 were residents of long term care, while all but 12 were known to have health conditions that put them at higher risk of serious illness.