Mary Beth Bender, clinic director and family nurse practitioner at Student Health, and Brant Schumaker, an associate professor and veterinary epidemiologist, both said 70 to 80 percent of the population need to be vaccinated before COVID-19 measures like mask mandates can be lifted.
“It is possible but it wouldn’t be until the tail end of 2021,” Schumaker said.
Schumaker is working at the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory on the logistics of COVID-19 testing, vaccinations, and controls of the cases.
“It depends on how well we are able to vaccinate our population, how willing people are to wear masks and social distance. We’re going to have to buckle down on that,” Bender said.
Bender said vaccine intakes vary by region. Albany County currently has a high demand for the vaccine while Campbell County does not have a high demand because “there are many people who do not want the vaccine.”
Bender said if COVID-19 continues to spread, more variants are a possibility that could influence the effectiveness of vaccines as an example.
“I, like so many people in our society, don’t prefer wearing masks but mask wearing is the single best tool we have to fight the pandemic. In order for us to soften that practice we will have to have enough people vaccinated to have adequate immunity in our community.
“Until then it is extremely important to practice social distancing and wearing a mask. We may find in the future that the vaccine is doing a good job of preventing the spread, but we don’t have that information at this point,” Schumaker said.
“It depends on how the disease behaves,” William Laegreid, the director of the Wyoming state vet lab, said.
Laegreid also said that masks and social distancing may only be a possibility after enough of the local people have received the COVID-19 vaccine.
“We want to prevent the university from being a source of infection at large,” Laegreid said.
For now, Laegreid said he recommends continuing protective practices as well as vaccinations as a method to best prevent transmission of the virus between people.
“If we begin to soften our social distancing and mask wearing too early it is likely we will see another surge of COVID-19 infections in Albany County,” Schumaker said.
In the upcoming week people 65 and older will be eligible for vaccines in Albany County.
The next group to get vaccines will be people with preexisting conditions including cancer, chronic kidney disease, pregnancy, and sickle cell anemia according to Bender.
Schumaker said those who are healthy should still get vaccinated.
“We are concerned that mild cases do not produce the same immunity levels. We are not sure the length of immunity from getting COVID naturally like with direct contact. We think especially in cases where symptoms are mild the immunity is not high or long lasting,” Schumaker said.
“While it causes more mild disease in college students, we saw an increase of infection and death in the people within our community,” Schumaker said.
