{"id":1320354,"date":"2020-06-04T18:19:01","date_gmt":"2020-06-05T00:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vaildaily.com\/?p=478930"},"modified":"2020-06-05T09:03:22","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T15:03:22","slug":"vail-march-may-have-violated-covid-19-rules-but-eagle-county-officials-arent-up-in-arms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/vail-march-may-have-violated-covid-19-rules-but-eagle-county-officials-arent-up-in-arms\/","title":{"rendered":"Vail march may have violated COVID-19 rules, but Eagle County officials aren\u2019t up in arms"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a crowd of around 500 people showed up in Vail on Tuesday night to join a protest march in support of Black Lives Matter,<\/a> the gathering plainly violated Eagle County\u2019s current COVID-19 recommendations.<\/p>\n

But the county\u2019s health officials aren\u2019t up in arms. They explained why during their weekly media briefing on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pandemic is a public health crisis, but racism is a public health crisis as well,\u201d said Eagle County Public Health Director Rebecca Larson. \u201cThis isn\u2019t about choosing one over another. They are interconnected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commissioner Kathy Chandler-Henry noted that the county\u2019s transition trail map <\/a>is in the blue phase, which recommends gatherings of no more than 50 people.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it was an unusual time and I think it was something the community really needed to do,\u201d said Chandler-Henry. \u201cPeople did have masks on and hopefully, from what we saw, people were trying to keep their distance.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was true at times and not so true at others. As Axel Contreras of La Nueva\u00a0Mix\/Always Mountain Time radio noted, \u201cAren\u2019t you afraid that the cases are going to spike with all these gatherings? I understand the whole situation \u2026 but it looks like we all forgot about COVID-19.\u201d<\/p>\n

Larson acknowledged that increased virus spread in the wake of the march is a possibility. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect that any time there is a gathering,\u201d she noted, pointing to spikes that happened after Mother\u2019s Day and when the weather started getting warmer and people began congregating.<\/p>\n

But three months into its COVID-19 response, Larson said the county is better prepared to address local outbreaks. What\u2019s more, health officials know that people are much less likely to contract COVID-19 in an outdoor environment, such as this week\u2019s march, than in an enclosed space.<\/p>\n

Larson added that the county\u2019s contact tracing efforts have shown that people are most likely to contract COVID-19 from someone in the same household. That\u2019s why it is vital for all household members to quarantine for 14 days after someone who shares the same living quarters tests positive.<\/p>\n

Chandler-Henry noted that regardless of the situation \u2014 at work, at the store or at a march \u2014 the top recommendation is to maintain social distance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith all the conflicting information out there, that one has stayed constant,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

County officials said their contact tracing work during the next couple of weeks will determine if this week\u2019s march resulted in COVID-19 spread.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to wait and see what will happen. The data and the science have informed our efforts and will continue to do so,\u201d Chandler-Henry said.<\/p>\n

And, over the next couple of weeks the local public health official will be studying the data and science to determine if the county is ready to move to the black stage of the transition trail map. If so, gatherings of up to 250 people, with social distancing protocols in place, would be allowed. The county hopes to make that transition June 22 and that final stage will define the local protocols for living with COVID-19 for the forseeable future.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis virus is going o be here for awhile,\u201d said Larson. \u201cIt\u2019s not going away.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Vail Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a crowd of around 500 people showed up in Vail on Tuesday night to join a protest march in support of Black Lives Matter, the gathering plainly violated Eagle County\u2019s current COVID-19 recommendations. But the county\u2019s health officials aren\u2019t up in arms. They explained why during their weekly media briefing on Thursday. \u201cThe pandemic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1320354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 18:06:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1320354"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1320362,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320354\/revisions\/1320362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1320354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1320354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1320354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}