Residents of Daggett, Duchesne, and Uintah Counties.
We, the TriCounty Board of Health, want to thank you for your efforts over the last year and a half to prevent the spread of COVID-19. We especially want to thank the community leaders, businesses, employees of TriCounty, and our partners in the healthcare profession. We also thank the schools, Utah National Guard and the many volunteers for their tireless efforts and willingness to combat the spread of the virus. Our community’s willingness to come together helped prevent many local illnesses and deaths.
Last year, we faced the serious threat of our hospitals being over capacity and having a negative impact on our health care resources. Together everyone’s actions helped slow the spread of the virus until a vaccine was available.
We express our deepest condolences to the hundreds of local residents who lost loved ones during the COVID-19 crisis. We encourage our friends and neighbors to continue to unite and support one another.
We want to remind everyone this pandemic is not over, and while the nature of the threat today looks very different than last year, we are not out of the woods yet.
A large portion of our elderly population, at-risk friends and neighbors have now been vaccinated, but there are still many people at risk for COVID-19. Some of them are not able to be vaccinated for various reasons, and others may be waiting to see how the situation develops before getting immunized, or have chosen not to be vaccinated. As we head into the new school year, we encourage every vaccine-eligible person in our community who is not yet vaccinated to consider discussing with a healthcare professional the benefits of being vaccinated.
We hope this school year can be as normal as possible for our children. This is best accomplished through a continued fight against infectious disease. In addition to encouraging vaccination, we remind schools, businesses and the community that it is more important than ever that each of us stay home when sick. This applies to working adults and school-aged children alike. We urge everyone to continue to make extra efforts toward improved hygiene and disease prevention. We also encourage those not vaccinated to follow the suggested preventative measures by wearing masks and continue to practice social distancing.
TriCounty Health will continue to follow the guidance provided by the local and state epidemiologists and disease prevention specialists as they monitor disease spread and trends into this school year. They also will continue to share information and guidance with the community as it is provided to protect the health of our community.
Sincerely,
Terry Nelson
TriCounty Board of Health Chair
BOARD OF HEALTH
Brad Horrocks – Gregory Miles – Randy Asay – Shanna Wheeler – Richard Jolley -Terry Nelson – Keith Goodspeed – Jodi Tinker – John Mathis