What’s going on in Teton County?
COVID-19 cases skyrocket to highest in the pandemic
by Pinedale Online!
Original post December 31, 2021 | Updated January 11, 2022
Editor's note, Tues. Jan 11, 2022: This story has been updated with a new graphic showing data from the Teton County Public Health website as of January 6, 2022. As of this date, there still are no confirmed cases of omicron in Teton County, Wyoming, and only 25 cases confirmed in the state, all in eastern Wyoming. The graphic shows that 19,465 people in Teton County (83%) have received a 2nd dose of Pfizer/Moderna vaccines. The population of Teton County is 23,464 (2019).
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Original post:
Recent data shows the number of COVID-19 cases in Teton County have skyrocketed starting around December 20th. Cases have been averaging about 15 per day for about three months, since the end of September, 2021. Right before Christmas, cases began to increase significantly, jumping to 62 on December 22nd and then 85 on December 27th.
This case number is the highest of any time during the pandemic for their county. There have been 438 new lab-confirmed cases in the last 14 days in Teton County, as of December 30th. They have a total of 5,950 lab-confirmed and probable cases in the county to date.
The county’s vaccination rates are the highest in the state. Overall population vaccination rate is 85.3%. 94.3% of adults (age 18+) are fully vaccinated. 39.5% of children age 5-11 are vaccinated in the county, according to data from the Wyoming Department of Health.
The county gets more than 4 million visitors each summer to the two national parks, Yellowstone and Grand Teton. The summer tourist season ended October/November.
There are currently no positive cases of omicron in Teton County, according to the Teton County Health Department.
Teton County has had the most restrictive COVID-19 public health measures of any county in the state, starting mask mandates and social distancing restrictions before the state implemented them. They have left them on even after the state dropped them, and they continue through the end of December 2021.
We don’t know the significance of this data at this time. Are there truly more cases, or perhaps this is just a reflection of the increased testing for surveillance or people needing negative test results for travel needs? Are individuals being counted more than once as they retest to get a negative result? We’ll need to watch the data over the next couple of weeks to see if this is just a fluke spike or if there is something more substantial going on, and if other counties in the state start to see similar spikes in cases.
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