According to the Wyoming Department of Health (WDOH), there has been a substantial decrease in the average number of laboratory confirmed cases this week; however, this does not mean that the virus is not still spreading in Wyoming.
“There was not as much of an increase in testing demand. And, laboratories, both in-state and across the country, were probably not in operation Thursday or Friday,” said Stefan Johansson, the Deputy Director for the Wyoming Department of Health.
Johansson said that WDOH has been anticipating this sudden decrease in the average number of laboratory confirmed cases because of testers taking time off for Thanksgiving.
“We think there might be kind of a lag in what we are going to see in the total number of cases, especially over the last couple of days where we could see this increase, as potentially as a result of the Thanksgiving holiday where more folks may have been getting together with friends and family,” said Johansson.
Before this sudden decrease in reported COVID-19 cases, WDOH had been reporting a nearly exponential growth in cases.
“Due to what we know is happening in our communities with the spread of this virus, we have, since the beginning of October, seen a pretty precipitous increase in the number of cases and the number of hospitalizations resulting from those cases.”
Besides the natural spread of the virus throughout Wyoming, there were other factors that led to this alarming increase before the recent decrease.
“In the couple of weeks prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, both here in Wyoming and nationally, we have seen an increase in demand for COVID-19 testing, so more people were being tested,” said Johansson.
“Likely some of the reasons for that are folks wanting to plan for their holiday, maybe visiting friends and family, trying to be as safe as possible; finding out whether they have or do not have COVID-19.”
Although the WDOH is planning for additional cases of COVID-19 for December, they cannot predict if the current exponential-like increase will continue.
“I will say that here at the Department of Health, we are planning efforts both for our hospitals recourses and our testing resources that we are putting out there. We are planning to see increases in December. How much of that will be related to Thanksgiving holiday gatherings is hard to say,” said Johansson.
Johansson also said that if Wyomingites do not take the COVID-19 spread precautions that the WDOH has recommended, there may be a similar increase in December like in October and November.
“If folks around the state are taking precautions, wearing face coverings, implementing social distancing, using our testing resources, I am optimistic that we can start to move this in the other direction.”
