Lake County is seeing lower COVID-19 numbers, and as a result it is looking at moving down the state’s COVID-19 Dial from Level Yellow to Level Blue.
In Lake County Public Health Agency’s (LCPHA) most recent update, 11 cases were being monitored for a total of 683 cases in the county since the pandemic began a year ago. The positivity rating has eased down to 7.6 percent after a spike earlier in the year caused by a superspreader event in Leadville.
In addition, the county is preparing to move into the 1B.4 vaccine group, which includes people age 50 and older, those age 16 to 49 with a high-risk condition, and many front-line workers, including those in restaurants, postal workers, public transit employees and higher-education workers.
Colleen Nielsen, Director of LCPHA, said in last week’s COVID-19 town hall that the 1B.4 grouping is likely to go into place March 21, although Gov. Jared Polis has since moved the date up to Friday, March 19. He added that plans were in place for all Coloradans to have access to a vaccine by mid-April.
“Because this is such a large group (1B.4), we are hoping to have a point of dispensing of up to 500 people beginning on that Wednesday, March 24.” For more information on the event, check in on LCPHA’s COVID-19 Information Facebook page.
She said LCPHA is planning to coordinate with businesses across the county to get employees signed up for the event and that the agency will update the public as it gets more news.
Lake County continues to vaccinate the 1B.3 group, which includes those age 60 and older, people working in grocery and agricultural businesses, and those ages 16 to 59 with two or more high-risk conditions.
She said that with lower numbers of cases and with more vaccines going into arms that there is genuine hope. “Now I actually feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that is exciting… We’re sitting in a really good position as a county.”
Nielsen said, however, that it is imperative for those who have been vaccinated to continue with safety practices: wearing masks in public, keeping a six-foot distance and frequent hand washing.
Lisa Zwerdlinger, M.D., public health officer for LCPHA, concurred and noted that those who have received vaccines can still get COVID-19. “Even if you are vaccinated, even if you had COVID, you still will get COVID again. It’s just going to be a much more mild infection for you.
“It is not 100 percent effective,” she said, “and no vaccine that has ever been made is 100 percent effective. Even natural infection is not 100 percent effective.”
Zwerdlinger said it remains important to protect neighbors. “You still, unfortunately, can infect others.”
She repeated what she has said in multiple online updates: “The vaccine is safe. The vaccine is effective and the vaccine will end the pandemic if we all get vaccinated. But we have to be vaccinated, and if folks don’t get vaccinated, then unfortunately the pandemic will linger on forever.”
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