SALT LAKE CITY – Gov. Spencer Cox was optimistic and enthusiastic about Utah’s prospects for ending the pandemic at Thursday’s COVID-19 weekly conference. But the newly elected state leader did say that while the future is bright, things could have gone better if the state had implemented a mask mandate sooner.
“Sometimes we got it right and sometimes we got it wrong,” he said. “We made other mistakes before by not making masks, not forcing them before, which could have helped and maybe saved some lives.”
Former Gov. Gert Herbert endured the implementation of a statewide mask order for months against the pandemic and only gave in after a huge increase in cases before the Thanksgiving in November. At the time, Cox had just won the government election and was still the lieutenant governor and head of the state’s coronavirus working group.
“In retrospect, we should have it and we probably could have imposed it,” Cox said Thursday.
Although the state did not have an official mandate for masks until late fall, Herbert, Cox and other officials recommended the use of a face mask and produced 2 million masks to distribute to those who do so. they needed.
“Many of us have been right on issues related to this pandemic and many of us have been wrong at different times,” Cox said Thursday, stressing the balance sheet that officials are facing as new news emerges. information.
As of March 2020, facial coverage was not yet a political issue and health officials and agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, asked residents not to wear it.
At the time, CDC guidelines discouraged the use of facial coatings, saying medical supplies for hospital staff on the front line needed to be preserved and coverage would do little to prevent the spread. But by April 2020, once asymptomatic spread was better understood, the CDC had updated its guidelines to advise all U.S. residents to wear a face mask.
“We’ve learned a lot about masks,” Cox said. “We learned more about the effectiveness of masks.”
Since the first response to the pandemic, several studies have shown data confirming 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 predicted that COVID-19 cases in the country would peak in March before a decrease in cases was seen. In Utah, case numbers 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 vaccine doses have been administered in Utahns, nearly doubling the total number of COVID-19 cases seen since the start of the pandemic, to 369,433. A total of 1,890 Utahns have died from COVID-19 and 14,597 have been hospitalized, according to the Utah Department of Health.
The Pfizer and Modern COVID-19 two-dose vaccines are currently available for eligible Utahns in the state, and the availability of the Johnson and Johnson single-dose vaccine is expected in the coming days.
Overall, Cox was extremely optimistic about the state’s future with the pandemic, and said during the summer he hopes to be without masks at a July 4 parade. He predicted that in late April or early May, there will be enough doses of vaccine available for all adults in Utah who want to get one.
As long as transmission is low after the majority vaccination, Cox believes the masks will no longer be needed earlier than expected. That prediction could change, and if it does, the governor said the state would adjust its response.
Despite the mistakes made by leaders in the past, Cox stressed the importance of showing 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 do it exactly right, and (the masks) was probably a place where we could have done it a little earlier,” Cox said.